Pt 1: Madonna on Film

Madonna is back with her new album, Confessions II, accompanied by an ambitious short film that revisits many of the images and ideas that have defined her career. Over two essays, I want to consider not only the music, but how Madonna's relationship to visual storytelling has evolved over the last five decades.

In a recent YouTube video with Vogue Italia, we find Madonna in the comfort of her London home walking viewers through her favorite objects—a Frida Kahlo painting, a fragrance that reminds her of her mother, and phallic sculptures that reside in her bathroom.

Toward the end of the video, she reveals that in her most intimate moments she reads first editions in bed. One volume from her bedside pile is written in Italian and contains the screenplay to Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers. She loves the film, and Visconti's artistry, so much that she named her son after its titular hero. Among many things, Madonna is, at heart, a cineaste.

For her latest album, Confessions II, Madonna accompanied the release with a ten-minute short film directed by the duo TORSO. Instead of dropping a music video for every song or even exclusively for the singles, Madonna has produced a visual patchwork highlighting elements from the album, layering the songs with a seemingly endless array of references and Easter eggs. On first viewing, I found it too scattered and too literal. Revisiting a smattering of her most iconic videos, however, reminded me that Madonna is at her most liberated when she can reassemble, reinterpret, and reimagine her own secret garden of cinematic, artistic, and cultural references.