Goddess: Inside Madonna (52 page)

There is not one haphazard moment in the entire show. Drowned World, by omission, is the most autobiographical and revealing of all Madonna’s performances, clean and clear in its meaning and message of who she is or perhaps who she wants us to believe she has become. And yet, several things haven’t changed, specifically the anguish she harbors over her mother’s death and the ambiguity she feels for her father. In one instance, a video clip portraying Madonna’s face, rotting and bloody, her eyes rimmed in ghoulish black and red, reminiscent of a corpse, appeared behind her as she sang “Frozen.” In another, a ditty she composed to the tune of “Davy Crockett,” she talked about her daddy and cannibalism, after which she asked the audience rhetorically, “Who doesn’t come from a dysfunctional family?”

The demons and phantoms may still be there but they have been tamed and controlled. She makes it clear that all she is willing to do now to keep our attention is to remind us, by video clips, subtle allusions of costume and dance, and a brief musical retrospective, why we turned her into a goddess in the first place. She expects us now more than ever before to be satisfied with Madonna, the consummate performer who is only willing to give us a show, our money’s worth, the price of admission, one hour and forty minutes of energy, without having to make us believe that she is granting us access into the deepest recesses of her mind, or to make us privy to the innermost secrets of her sexual and emotional life.

Beginning with the dark sets that take Fritz Lang’s
Metropolis
one step further into a sexually twisted subculture to the members of the chorus dressed in cutting-edge wet suits and gas masks, giving the impression of extraterrestrial insects, Madonna confirms her maturity, sophistication, and growth as she moves from the blatant to the subtle. In the past her appeal was in her ability to connect with her public, to draw them in by convincing them that her performance was a privileged glimpse into her private world. Today she gives us just the right amount of the sordid and the tawdry, with several
fuck you
s and a couple of
mother-fucker
s thrown in for good measure. Even the sadomasochistic theme and allusions to religion are more subtle. Rather than focusing on the crucifix that has been her most familiar trademark prop, there are videos of born-again Christian babies being baptized in rural Southern American rivers, Indian rituals, and Hasidic Jews praying at the Wailing Wall. She assures us that her life is still fraught with cross-connections between pain and pleasure when several dancers swig from bottles and spit into the audience, or when naked dancers hang upside down from their heels, or when a scrawny girl dressed as a bug is squashed and choked by another dancer disguised as a larger insect, her legs and arms flailing in a macabre dance of death, or when Madonna herself is menaced by a Japanese wrestler wielding a sword over her head.

Sex remains a violent and capricious act to Madonna. And yet, somehow she projects a sense of objectivity and distance that forces us to realize that she is doing it only for
us
, rather than to satisfy her own prurient tastes. Madonna, the eclectic pop icon, has apparently settled her internal debate on God and the Church that raged within her for the first eighteen years of her career. When she dresses as a geisha, or as a superwoman, with sexually explicit cartoons projected on the screen behind her, as she kicks and jabs at hapless male and female dancers, or when we see her briefly in her “American Pie” T-shirt or hear several bars of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from her film
Evita
, she makes sure that we recall her previous works without actually bothering to perform them for us in their totality. She gives us every transition in her career in shorthand, acknowledging her search for an image that in the past was her guarantee to keep us interested, yet making it clear that after all these years, she has decided that changing images is no longer necessary to hold our attention. She is here to stay. She has made it. She is secure in our adulation. It is no longer imperative for her to work constantly, putting in twenty-hour days, seven days a week. Her career has been put into perspective and what she owes her fans has been redefined so that the performer has been surgically separated from the individual. Curiously, had she presented herself to the public as a mere artist when she first started out, giving only one hour and forty minutes of music and dance, sets, and costumes, she might never have endured. Even with this latest transformation, however, we are still part of her world. After all, she is allowing us in, inviting us to share in her nostalgia, to reminisce about her career, even if we are no longer crucial to her survival, no longer necessary to validate her existence, no longer required to function as the substitute mommies who give her unconditional love and approval. We should be happy for her. She has her children now and a new husband.

It is no coincidence that Madonna took an eight-year hiatus from the stage to tend to her personal life and even less coincidental that when she did return, she presented herself in an abbreviated version of all that she once was. The difference between Madonna today and Madonna yesterday is that she has created a distance between herself and her audience. With complete confidence, she has no doubt that this new technique will work because she gives her fans enormous credit. She counts on them to understand that she has earned that privilege of distance and repose. How can she err? This is a woman who survives and thrives on her instincts.

At the end of the show, on that June night in Paris in 2001, the house lights suddenly went dark and the stage bare. There were no bows or encores, no curtain calls or speeches. Madonna was gone but not forgotten. . . .

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Ackerman, Robert Allan, 279

Adam, Piers, 397

Ahmadzai, Mirwais, xiv–xv, 405–406

Aiello, Danny, 112, 320

Ailey, Alvin, 189

Alavie, Marlene, 80

Allen, Keith, 253

Allen, Woody, 200

Almodóvar, Pedro, 341

Alter, Adam, 172, 251, 252–57, 260, 263–66, 268

Alter, Lewis, 253, 264

Anderson, Stuart, 393

Ansen, David, 279

Arnold, Tom, 116

Arquette, Rosanna, 13, 110–11, 294

Attenborough, Richard, 5

Ayckbourn, Alan, 8

Babenco, Hector, 5

Baker, Josephine, 360

Ball, Stephen, 227

Banderas, Antonio, 3, 18, 42, 345

Bankhead, Tallulah, 360

Banner, Simon, 336–37

Barbone, Camille, 172, 246, 251, 252–58, 260, 263–66

Barish, Lenora, 288

Barnes, Clive, 323

Barnum, Phineas T., xxii–xxiii

Barr, Roseanne, 115–16

Basinger, Kim, 311

Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 184, 213–17

Baumgold, Julie, 18

Beatty, Warren, 9, 129, 197, 220, 310, 333–34, 391

Becker, Harold, 274, 277

Bedard, Dennis, 382

Behrman, Joan, 80

Bell, Barry, 315

Bell, Erica, 283

Belle, Jennifer, 359

Benda, Wladyslas, 162

Benitez, John “Jellybean,” 214, 282–85, 326

Benjamin, Richard, 279

Bennett, Tony, 137

Berg, Eric, 388–89

Berger, Michel, 234

Berle, Milton, 253

Bernhard, Sandra, 119, 197, 260, 261, 325–27, 332

Bernstein, Sid, 334

Bertolucci, Bernardo, 345

Binoche, Juliette, 299

Bird, Andy, 367–68

Birnbaum, Roger, 314

Bishop, Lionel, 52–53, 197

Björk, 366

Bock, Thomas E., 70

Borralho, Leonel, 299

Bowie, David, 269, 315–16

Brando, Marlon, 278

Bratt, Benjamin, xxiv

Bray, Steve, 90, 112, 185–87, 203, 249–50, 265, 267–68

Brennan, Jim, 66–67

Brontë, Emily, 103

Brook, Clive, 301

Brookner, Harold, 333

Brown, Reverend Susan, 393, 396–98

Bukowski, Charles, 184

Burke, Gary, 249

Burroughs, Norris, 200–206, 213, 222–23, 248

Burroughs, William S., 158

Byrne, David, 266, 281

Cage, Nicolas, 320

Caine, Michael, 382

Camaro, José, 35–37

Campau, Michelle, 63

Cananilla, Hugo Rodríguez, 39

Canby, Vincent, 338

Capote, Truman, 171, 261

Carnegie, Andrew, 393, 399

Caroline, Princess of Monaco, 398

Casares, Ingrid, 9, 15–16, 17, 197, 217, 260, 362–63, 388, 399

Cassals, Sam, 15

Cavanagh, Rita, 125–26

Chanel, Coco, 95–96

Cher, 294, 296, 320, 382

Chirac, Claude, 315

Chirac, Jacques, 315

Chow, Tina, 214

Ciccone, Adrien, 143

Ciccone, Anthony, 80, 84, 142–44, 149, 294, 325

Ciccone, Christopher, 80, 84–85, 137, 144–45, 147, 175–76, 294, 298, 325, 329, 363, 395

Ciccone, Gaetano, 71, 76

Ciccone, Jennifer, 73, 135, 142, 144, 294

Ciccone, Joan Gustafson, 58, 72–75, 102, 126–33, 134–39, 142–49, 165, 169, 244, 264, 294, 386, 390, 395, 399

Ciccone, Madonna Louise,
see
Madonna

Ciccone, Madonna Louise Fortin, xvii–xix, xxi, 46, 53, 61, 66–69, 78–85, 89–94, 96, 97, 98, 99–100, 102, 104, 106, 107, 108–109, 117–19, 122–23, 125, 127, 130–31, 132–33, 138, 143, 145, 146, 161, 162, 218, 261–62, 278, 321

Ciccone, Mario, 136, 142, 144, 294

Ciccone, Martin, 80, 84, 136, 142, 143–44, 149, 165, 168, 294

Ciccone, Melanie,
see
Henry, Melanie Ciccone

Ciccone, Michelina, 71, 76

Ciccone, Paula, 80, 84, 135, 136, 142, 143–44, 149, 165, 168, 264–65, 294–95

Ciccone, Silvio “Tony,” xvii, xviii, xix, xxiii, 42, 69, 71, 72–82, 83, 84, 86, 90, 91, 92, 96, 99–100, 102, 108–109, 118–21, 125–27, 129–32, 136, 138–39, 140–41, 142–46, 147, 148, 151, 162, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 176, 186, 216, 244, 264, 278, 285, 290, 294–95, 327, 369–70, 386, 390, 395, 396, 399, 409

Connolly, Sister Mary, 140

Connor, Lesley, 392

Cooke, Sam, 184

Coppola, Francis Ford, 5

Coreman, Cis, 273–74

Coreman, Richard, 274

Cortesi, Dan, 10–17, 362–66

Covington, Julie, 223, 347

Coward, Noël, 367

Crawford, Loretta, 336

Crete, Roy “Jay,” 67

Cruise, Tom, 276, 294

Cruz, Penélope, 137

Culken, John, 289

Cunningham, Dennis, 324–25

Curran, John, 299

Currie, Alannah, 292

Dafoe, Willem, 339–40

Dalai Lama, 360, 399

Dalí, Salvador, 202

Danzig, Ethel, 259

Davis, Carolyn, 64–65

Davis, Don, 106

Davis, Geena, 336

Dean, James, 205–206, 278, 279

De Guilio, Bambina, 75

del Boca, Andrea, 22

de Lempicka, Tamara, xi, 25

DeMann, Freddy, xvi, 219, 285, 314, 325

De Niro, Robert, 280

de Reya, Mishcon, 381

de Savary, Peter, 393

Dietrich, Marlene, 25, 117, 184, 301, 311, 337, 338

di Tella, Andrés, 33

Dokoudovski, Vladimir, 173

Dolores, Mother, 153–54

Douglas, Michael, 401

Duarte, Juan, 88–89, 173

Dugan, Christine, 182

Dunne, Griffin, 312–13

Duras, Marguerite, 184

Duvall, Shelley, 222, 294

Eagles, Jeanne, 360

Edel, Uli, 339

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 55

Eluard, Nusch, 163

Enos, John, 9, 16

Estevez, Emilio, 276, 294

Everett, Rupert, 97–99, 361, 396

F., Simon, 325

Fab Five Freddy, 213

Farrow, Mia, 313, 403

Felder, Raoul, 355

Ferrara, Abel, 341

Fiennes, Ralph, xix

Fine, Michelle, 108, 114

Fischerman, Alberto, 34

Fisher, Carrie, 262, 294

Fitzgerald, Ella, 184

Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 184, 205, 235

Fitzgerald, Zelda, 205, 235

Fleiss, Heidi, 355

Fleiss, Paul, 355

Flynn, Christopher, 173–77, 179–80, 181, 183–86, 201, 203, 205, 207

Foley, James, 280–81, 286, 290, 291, 294–95, 311–13, 317, 329

Ford, Harrison, 302

Fortin, Andrew, 64

Fortin, Carl, 61, 64, 122, 164

Fortin, Dale, 61, 78, 80, 92, 122

Fortin, David, 61, 64

Fortin, Earl, 61, 64, 106

Fortin, Elsie, 53, 55, 61–66, 76, 78–79, 81, 83, 92–93, 99–100, 105, 109, 122, 125, 143, 164, 176, 244–45, 290, 294, 308–309

Fortin, Gary, 61, 92

Fortin, Madonna Louise,
see
Ciccone, Madonna Louise Fortin

Fortin, Marilyn, 61, 64, 68, 80

Fortin, Michael (Mickey), 61, 64

Fortin, Williard, 61–62

Fournier, Jane, 80

Franklin, Aretha, 184

Fraser, Clum Spud, 394

Freeman, Lucy, 305

Freeman, Paul, 287, 299, 300, 303–304, 305, 306, 307

Freud, Lucian, 381

Friedlander, Lee, 210

Futura 2000, 213, 283

Gall, France, 234

Gambacinni, Paul, 159–60, 338

Gaye, Marvin, 168

Gere, Richard, 214

Gershon, Freddie, 334

G.G., 383

Gilroy, Dan, 186, 200, 222–23, 224, 245–49, 267–68, 294, 326

Gilroy, Ed, 222–23, 245–48

Goddard, Jim, 298–300, 303–304

Goldmann, Jean-Jacques, 234

Gow, Harry, 399

Graham, Martha, 156, 182, 190, 336

Grant, Cary, 312

Grant, Hugh, 17

Grey, Jennifer, 261, 325

Griffith, Melanie, 18

Gruber, Peter, 314

Grubman, Alan, 334, 335

Guccione, Bob, 210–11

Gunther (German shepherd), 382

Gustafson, Joan,
see
Ciccone, Joan Gustafson

Hall, Arsenio, 220

Hanks, Tom, 336

Hannah, Daryl, 280

Hans (bodyguard), 40–41

Haring, Keith, 184–213

Harlow, Jean, 117, 313

Harris, Anita, 112–13

Harris, Marian, 80

Harrison, George, 298, 304, 307, 366

Harry, Debbie, 184–85