The story of Madonna’s leap to stratospheric celebrity is breathlessly and efficiently retold in this documentary that uses only archive clips and existing audio interview material in the now accepted way. It tracks the period from her tough beginnings as a dancer in late 70s New York to the early 90s days of the Blonde Ambition tour and her once-controversial Mapplethorpe-type book of photos entitled Sex. It’s watchable enough, with some interesting things to say about Madonna’s instinctive knack for appropriating a gay aesthetic and repurposing it for her own heterosexual spectacle, and then repaying the debt by becoming an outspoken advocate for HIV/Aids research.
Yet the film can also feel breezy and glib. There is no mention of Madonna’s appearances in movies such as Desperately Seeking Susan and Dick Tracy or indeed her appearance in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow on Broadway – perhaps because these don’t fit the “legendary” format (although Desperately Seeking Susan has its admirers). And there is something exasperating in the way the film won’t reveal the exact dates and provenance of its audio; Madonna will sometimes speak about her past and her family in a British accent, showing that the interview comes from the later era of her marriage to Guy Ritchie, and sometimes her voice will switch back to her native Michigan.
