In this blog post, I’ll explore Madonna’s unwavering energy and the boundaries of truth in the documentary through ‘Madonna: Truth or Dare’.
This year, more than ever, I’ve realized just how difficult it is to communicate with people. Amidst these difficulties, the people around me have become increasingly set in their ways, and I’ve been going through countless clashes trying to understand them. These clashes leave me with an unrelenting fatigue.
There are many ways to cope with the fatigue that comes from these clashes of ideas. Listening to music, going into seclusion, skipping school. At one point, I was even consumed by the thought of leaving for a foreign country where I couldn’t hear Korean. But these simple methods were nothing more than brief, superficial respites; they only served to entangle me further in increasingly complex human and social relationships. I continued to search for ways to relieve the fatigue caused by these clashes. And that’s when I encountered Madonna, who lives her life in a way different from mine.
I’m not particularly biased, but just like the phrase “birds of a feather,” the people I talk to share common ground. When I sit in a café drinking coffee and listen to their conversations, the topics they discuss never seem to cool down—whether they’re as hot as a steaming cup of coffee or as cold as an iced one. Whether the topic is dreams, hobbies, or anything else. And their topics always feel fresh to me; I often marvel at where they find such unending energy. Of course, there are downsides too. There are many clashes. It takes a long time for those clashes to fade—not because they’re wrong, but because they’re transformed into the word “difference.”
Returning to the point, Madonna: Truth or Dare is like a documentary asking, “Why doesn’t a cup of coffee ever go cold?” After watching this film, you won’t find yourself chasing after Madonna—who makes money through countless concerts—nor will you delve into why she pursues the image of sexuality that has become her trademark. Nor does it attempt to capture the “other side” of a star’s private life, as a reality TV show might. Following the Direct Cinema style, the camera simply appears to be striving to capture “something” about Madonna. I feel that “something” drew me in, and it could also be considered the theme of this documentary.
In other words, while this documentary follows the Direct Cinema format, it also appears to adopt the three-act, five-point structure typical of fiction. The subject is not her philosophy, but her relentless energy, and the delivery is, as the title suggests, either truth or audacity. Leaving the question, “Where does truth end and fiction begin?” the film generally tries to hide its subject and focuses solely on capturing her through the camera. Furthermore, the film employs a structured editing style reminiscent of fiction to present a subject that could easily come across as boring.
To summarize briefly,
1. The film opens with her losing her temper over a malfunctioning speaker at a concert, revealing her impatient nature. (Character Introduction)
2. She has a group of troublesome backup dancers who make her feel like a mother to them. (Incident)
3. As she tours, she calls out the backup dancers’ parents one by one, respecting and looking out for their dreams. (Development)
4. However, amidst this family-like group of backup dancers, the introduction of gay members is followed by the revelation that one of the dancers was sexually assaulted at a club. (Crisis)
5. Madonna embraces them beyond their sexual identities, comforting them as if a prostitute on her stage were transformed into a saint, and once again performs a concert with them, united as one. (Resolution)
As briefly summarized above, the documentary ‘Madonna: Truth or Dare’ employs a narrative structure designed to draw viewers’ attention to Madonna. However, to pose the question—as the title suggests—of “how much of this is true?” the film frequently alternates between black-and-white footage capturing Madonna’s daily life and color footage of her performances.
This approach makes it seem to us as if both of these images represent Madonna’s true self, yet the film’s title is ‘Madonna: Truth or Dare’. While this title can be interpreted in countless ways, I suspect there is another reason why director Alek Keshishian chose it to draw attention to this controversial work. In other words, as Warren says midway through the film, the idea that she loses her value the moment the camera stops rolling makes us question this approach, and we can faintly sense that what the director truly wants to capture is something else.
“In my opinion, all humans are both masochists and sadists. Humans live by inflicting violence or pain on one another anyway. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve handcuffs or a cane to be considered abuse. Men inflict violence on women every single day. It only appears to be harmless because the form of that violence is, for the most part, one that society tolerates. Furthermore, people have different needs, desires, tastes, and fantasies. We should not condemn or judge others simply because they differ from us. Sex is simply the realm I have chosen to express myself. Sex has always been a taboo subject. I will strive to change that, and my nude photo book titled ‘Sex’ will provide an opportunity for change in people’s consciousness. In this sense, I consider myself a kind of revolutionary. I will bring a subculture that most people view as a degenerate sexual culture into the mainstream.”
This is Madonna’s answer to the question, “Why are people so obsessed with sadism and masochism?” Does Madonna’s unique philosophy represent her true values? We see this in the film when she pushes through with her Canadian concert for the sake of her philosophy, though the film has edited out that very point.
The director presents not only sequences related to her philosophy but also various episodes from her personal life—her mother’s death, her conservative father and her unpredictable younger brother, a friend who asks her to be his godmother, and her praying with her backup dancers before a performance—adopting a style that merely touches on these visible phenomena without delving deeply into them. In other words, the idea that her value fades when the camera stops rolling suggests that the film’s overall structure is edited not to focus on her story, but rather on the “Madonna’s undying energy” that the director wishes to capture.
Black-and-white scenes, color scenes (performances), and shots of Madonna preparing for her performance intercut, followed by the performance itself. 1. Conversations with the backup dancers – the immature backup dancers 2. A conversation between Madonna and her conservative father 3. Conversations with the crew due to sound malfunctions 4. Madonna’s true feelings about Warren (the actor) 5. Police pressure regarding the Canadian concert, among others, are cross-edited.
Scenes interspersed with the performances include 6. The appearance of Madonna’s younger brother and her father’s birthday 7. an anecdote about her mother revealed alongside the appearance of Madonna’s friend 8. Madonna with a sore throat 9. Stories of the gay backup dancers 10. Madonna discussing her own art and philosophy 11. Actors Madonna loves 12. Madonna having fun and bonding with the backup dancers—these and various other episodes unfold.
Through cross-cutting between her performances and everyday moments, she may appear like a concert monster who never stops running. The film even captures the inside of Madonna’s mouth, making it seem as though the camera is constantly following her, yet we rarely see her resting. This narrative approach blurs the line between fiction and reality regarding her energy and humanity, making her appear all the more captivating.
Furthermore, just as a prostitute transforms into a saint, her image evolves into something sacred and beautiful. While her role as a commercial and sexual icon, and her process of creating her own art, served as a crucial bridge for the film medium to shine, this film is, above all, filled with the powerful energy of dreaming and proclaiming to the world what she desires.
The reason I feel she and I lead different lives is that she does not shy away from conflict, nor does she fear it; even if her methods of making herself understood are radical, she does not shy away from presenting the themes only she can address to society and the public. While the director captures Madonna’s methods and tactics, I believe the film’s theme plays a role in preventing it from being reduced to a mere commercial documentary.
I, too, believe that the energy not visible on screen is what has elevated her to where she is today, and I wonder if those exhausting clashes will continue to appear in my own life. Finally, even if my struggles aren’t exactly the same, I find this documentary comforting because of the similarities between Madonna’s experiences and my own.
