ArtForFreedom Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 5. Oh Father (Director -David Fincher) Quote The death of Madonna’s mother reverberates throughout her discography, and the artist’s early confrontation with loss is put on powerful display in the cinematic video for 1989’s semi-autobiographical “Oh Father.” The dreamlike and disturbing clip, directed by David Fincher, takes its visual cues from Citizen Kane, casting an icy pallor over images excavated from Madonna’s memory, including a confrontation with her grieving father and the sewn-up lips of her mother’s corpse. Rather than demonizing her father, whose misplaced ire prompts him to rip his dead wife’s pearls from a young Madonna’s neck, the singer offers a lesson in ending cycles of abuse by confronting trauma directly. The final image of a young Madonna dancing over her mother’s grave feels like a reclaiming of her pain—one of many mission statements slyly written into her videography—and of turning the legacy of her loss into art. Mason 4. "Frozen" (Director- Chris Cunningham) Quote Just as she sought to imbue electronica with heart on 1998’s Ray of Light, Madonna lent director Chris Cunningham’s stark, icy visual style a sense of humanity—and reportedly reined in his penchant for special effects—in the first video from the album. As a siren lost in an unidentified desert landscape, Madonna morphs into a flock of ravens, floats in the air like a specter, dances with herself in triplicate, and summons a cosmic storm with the twirl of her Henna-covered hand. The overriding theme of “Frozen,” however, is self-imposed isolation, and the video’s simplicity keys into Madonna’s straightforward but resonant refrain: “You’re frozen when your heart’s not open.” But it’s another lyric—“You only see what your eyes want to see”—that highlights the clip’s inherent ambiguity: Its hypnotic effect is not unlike succumbing to one’s own psychological paralysis. Cinquemani 3. "Open Your Heart" (Director- Jean Baptiste Mondino) Quote “Don’t try to run, I can keep up with you,” Madonna promises on “Open Your Heart,” and given the unflappable momentum of the track’s undulating bassline and the blithe directness of the singer’s basic argument, you don’t doubt her for a second. “Open Your Heart” is a major wrench in the argument that, at least in her first 15 or so years as a musical force, Madonna’s vinegar was more powerful than her sugar. The song’s video positions her as the most wholesome, kid-friendly peep show stripper you’ve ever seen. The ’80s may not have been a more innocent time, but it’s hard to imagine anyone getting away with dancing off into the sunset with a 12-year-old boy as Madonna does in the clip’s sun-kissed denouement. Henderson 2. "Express Yourself" (Director- David Fincher) Quote “Express Yourself” is the embodiment of queer chic, a bombastic masterpiece that heralds Madonna’s uncanny ability to use her consumer-driven image to code her feminist politics. Something this inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is not without theoretical implications. Here, Madonna plays the high priestess of a futuristic wage-slave community who celebrates the power of her repressed mechanism via self-love. The clip’s infinite metaphors are intricate and delirious without ever being pedantic. While Madonna looks for a way to vicariously penetrate the slave kingdom below her secret tower, sexual frustration begets physical aggression. Director David Fincher evokes the glamour and exoticism of male-on-male competition via the slave community’s constant flexing and cockfighting. Inside her postmodern living quarters, the five-foot-three Madonna towers above the crowd, slithers under her dining room table, and asserts her feminine wile. “Express Yourself” is as conceptually audacious as Metropolis because it celebrates both the power of the female sex and its ability to cripple the machine that dehumanizes it. Ed Gonzalez 1. "Vogue" (Director- David Fincher) Quote Look closely when that butler brushes off the bannister. Nope, no dust there; the finger pulls clean. Those who objected to Madonna’s co-opting two vibrant New York scenes—ball culture and the house underground—had every reason to cast any available aspersions once the music video for “Vogue” hit the airwaves. Directed with diamond-cut precision by David Fincher long before he became the fussiest of the A-list auteurs, the already plush song became a plummy fantasia of Old Hollywood luxury, and an actualization of the sort of glamour Paris Is Burning’s drag queens and dance-floor ninjas openly longed for. And it came with a steep price tag. “It makes no difference if you’re black or white,” goes the familiar refrain, but it’s unclear whether Madonna realized to what extent the clip’s flawless, monochromatic cinematography would underline the point. To some, the video (like New York’s ball scene) represented the ultimate democratization of beauty. To others, a presumptuously preemptive eradication of the racial question entirely. Henderson For the full 25 videos- https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/madonna-greatest-music-videos-ranked/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bestfiction Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Fair list tbh. I think these are her key videos Maybe replace Deeper, Secret or Borderline with Nothing Really Matters or Don't Tell Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oktober Knight Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 The real top 5: Bedtime Story Frozen Rain Ghosttown Vogue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnusualBoy Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Seeing that top 25, it's such a fresh reminder of how diverse and stunning is her videography, no other girl is seeing her in that regard and even the males bar Michael struggle to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LikeaRebel Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Dark Ballet and Girl Gone Wild over Take a Bow, Nothing Really Matters, Drowned World..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayanaa Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 8 minutes ago, UnusualBoy said: Seeing that top 25, it's such a fresh reminder of how diverse and stunning is her videography, no other girl is seeing her in that regard and even the males bar Michael struggle to. Madonna's videography is so much better than MJ's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lover Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 there'll never be another artist with 25 greatest videos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Great top 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobDeWittBukater Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Nothing Really Matters is sorely missed in this line-up, but other than that, the list is pretty much spot on Though I'd personally put Rain as the #10 instead of RoL. Rain's art direction is just stunning beyond belief Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madonno Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Bad Girl shoul be there intstead of Open Your Heart But nice list Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArtForFreedom Posted October 7, 2022 Author Share Posted October 7, 2022 Can we talk about how underrated Oh Father is both musically and visually? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andresg770 Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Rain and Bedtime Story at #14 and #13?? One of them is displayed at the MoMA wtf. LIST CANCELLED! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IceBreaker Posted October 8, 2022 Share Posted October 8, 2022 Love how often she reference old movies, without seeming pretentious and reductive her videography stays unmatched Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indigo Blue Posted October 8, 2022 Share Posted October 8, 2022 6 hours ago, ArtForFreedom said: Can we talk about how underrated Oh Father is both musically and visually? Grammy nominated visuals Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Istan4R Posted October 8, 2022 Share Posted October 8, 2022 Nah it’s more like: Bedtime Stories Human Nature Rain Nothing Really Matters Dark Ballet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.O.A.D.S. Posted October 8, 2022 Share Posted October 8, 2022 On 10/7/2022 at 4:12 PM, LikeaRebel said: I Want You over Take a Bow, Nothing Really Matters, Drowned World..? This. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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