1991: Madonna's Most Fascinating Movie Year
Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 10:00PM Team Experience is celebrating the 1991 film year for the next couple of weeks.
by Camila Henriques
1991 was an interesting year, movie-wise, for Madonna. The Queen of Pop had just come off of her Blond Ambition Tour and what was, arguably, her first movie to have a major awards breakthrough, Dick Tracy (with the caveat that Desperately Seeking Susan did get a Golden Globe for Rosanna Arquette). So, with that, she entered the decade with her feet dipping, once more, into the waters of film stardom.
Madonna’s cinematic year started - in the eyes of the audience, at least - on March 25, 1991, with an iconic performance at the 63rd Academy Awards. Dressed in a Bob Mackie gown that gave her an air of Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe. She also made headlines as she arrived at the awards gala. That happens when you’re Madonna and you step on the Oscars red carpet arm-in-arm with Michael Jackson...
Inside the Shrine Auditorium, she was breathless (in more ways that one, as that was also her character's name in Dick Tracy). She sang “Sooner Or Later”, the Stephen Sondheim tune that went on to win Best Original Song. Seven years later, Madge would help another Broadway legend, Andrew Lloyd Webber, add the "O" his EGOT claim (Sondheim is still short the Emmy - c’mon, TV Academy!).
A couple of months later, Madonna gave us what I still think is the best thing she’s done in film. Truth or Dare (or In Bed With Madonna depending on where you lived), directed by Alek Keshishian, is a fundamental stopfor anyone who wants to understand Madonna's career. It doesn’t claim to show “the real Madonna” nor is it interested in telling her life story. It feels like a perfectly crafted play (loosely based on real life) and boy, do we buy every second of it.
The movie offers an in-depth look inside the Blond Ambition tour, complete with media and religious shenanigans. It invites us into the dressing rooms, inside Madonna’s relationship with a camera reluctant Warren Beatty (at the time the film premiered, their love story was ancient history) and to her cheekier side that fans had long since grown to love.
With one of its titles borrowed from the truth or dare game Madonna plays with her dancers, it is clear that this doc, alongside 1990’s greatest hits compilation "The Immaculate Collection," bookends the first act of her career. She is fed up with the media, with the sexist treatment she gets. (That would soon lead to one of her masterpiece albums, “Erotica,” which also leads to arguably the greatest moment of her partnership with David Fincher, the "Bad Girl" video)
In Truth or Dare, we don’t forget the popstar: she’s there, with a few performances off of Blonde Ambition, like “Express Yourself” and Cabaret-inspired “Keep it Together”. But, with a fascinating artist like Madonna, the behind-the-scenes moments are all little sold-out shows in and of themselves.
From her annoyance at her backing vocals going all in with Belinda Carlisle “Heaven is a Place on Earth” to her reaction to Kevin Costner calling her show “neat”, everything pops. Even the now famous Sean Penn mention and the (maybe staged?) visit to her mother’s grave are important pieces of the puzzle that is Madonna. As with the other black and white film she did that year, Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog, it's as if she's frozen in time, each frame cementing her legend.
Madonna on the set of "Shadows and Fog"
Reader Comments (18)
That Jodie Foster / Kathy Bates / Madonna sequence in Shadows & Fog is an underrated gem.. part of an otherwise boring and forgotten Woody Allen movie.
maybe staged?? she had a camera crew in tow
On a different note, one of the other nominees against Sondheim was Shel Silverstein?? For “Postcards from the Edge”??? How did I not know this bit of Hollywood arcana?!
"That was really... neat" Kurt Cobain would mock that moment in the documentary film 1991: The Year Punk Broke about Sonic Youth's European festival tour where one of their openers was Nirvana who were about to break through at that time. Cobain's mocking was pretty funny as it showed why Kevin Costner is such a dork.
Shadows and Fog is a mess but still an interesting film from Woody Allen as Madonna was pretty good. She has her moments as an actress as I'm in that minority that really did like Who's That Girl? as I just thought it was a really silly-ass film that never took itself seriously.
I will always defend Shadows and Fog. Madonna introducing herself as a sword eater was priceless.
Remember those days when Woody could afford to waste hot talent in seconds-long cameos (Kate Nelligan)?
Madonna ruled the world in 91,Her Imperial phase.
FYI Arquette didn't win a Globe for the performance but she did win a BAFTA, one of their more idiosyncratic "supporting" actress moments (like Weaver for The Ice Storm, Pfeiffer for Dangerous Liaisons, Newton for Crash...).
Seeing pictures of Madonna in 2020 she’s inching closer to Jocelyn Wildenstein territory. If she was slightly likeable as a personality and went extreme waxwork fag hag club nana for her next phase as her next reinvention it just may work.
i have never loved a celebrity more than Madonna in this time period
Madonna is also my fav celebrity. People dismissed her as a thespian but with some of her film roles (Susan, Sarah in Ferrara’s Snake Eyes/Dangerous Game...just to remind there wasn’t just Eva Peron) she proved her worth. I love Arquette in Susan and I am glad she scored a Bafta but I wonder how it’s possible to consider her supporting in the film?
Isn't this, Shadows and Fog, the film in which Kathy Bates replaced Carmen Maura, after the spanish star refusing to perform in english, even for Woody Allen? That was a bad career move by one of the greatest actressess at work in the last 40 years...
Worst actress ever. Why is she being featured on a film blog?
I liked "Who's That Girl?" too. If maybe 40 years earlier, it would have been a Katherine Hepburn / Cary Grant film!
I was just obsessed, obsessed, OBSESSED with her at that time. I want her to remember what FUN she is.
Patti -- cuz we're featuring 1991 and she had two movies that year and won of them was super famous. Plus she performed at the Oscars. It's all in the post ;)
Patti - agree. One of the very worst. But then again her fans would seize the chance to elevate her movie career status whenever possible and I don;t blame them. Fans are fans after all and they may not be the most rational ones to argue against.
I'm pretty sure it's a Patti Lupone reference Nathaniel. A bit more sophisticated than the Peggy Sue/Joan Castleman, et al. accounts, so I understand how it may have flown over your head.
Agreeing with the Kate Nelligan/Shadows and Fog comment. I’d say that after Alice (1990), then especially after S&F, I always tried to avoid knowing who was in the cast of each upcoming Woody Allen movie. It’s worth closing your eyes at each beginning credit roll and avoiding all press hype. You expect ‘something’ by sensing this is Nelligan’s first post Oscar nod role. You get a super brief scene of her way up in a second floor, black and white window shouting about two lines at Allen, then she’s gone. That person was Kate Nelligan?
The movies go by the years. The girl in the movie is amazing. Thank you for sharing the information.