An invitation inside.
Open Your Heart really did something to me at 16 years old. I don't know if it was because Rolling Stone ran a story in Random Notes saying Madonna filmed her new video in 'the seedy Echo Park District of Los Angeles' or if it was because I saw a still from the video in her calendar before it was released with her and those pasties or if it was because of that Tamara DeLempicka stand up on top of the peep show building with light bulbs as nipples. Maybe it was just because of that glorious face, that f*cking body, that cropped butch white hair and that outfit all drenched in that blue light. I'm sure it was all those things and more.
Peep show club facade of Open Your Heart.
Whatever it was, Open Your Heart remains the greatest video of all time. Interesting that it never makes the list and somewhere in all that glory, Open Your Heart got lost. Sure, Papa Don't Preach was cinematic and her pro-life, pro-choice controversy reached above and beyond anything she had done before. Yes, Live to Tell marked the new Madonna and was brilliant in its stark simplicity. However, Open Your Heart is the real star here. I've always thought that Open Your Heart was a little too salacious for its time to get any sort of accolades. It slipped through the cracks before people knew what hit them. An athletic, strong peep show goddess in gold pasties and tassels; voyeurs loving, analyzing, enthralled, writing about, studying and beating off to her - men and women. A young boy waiting outside a porn theater before his mistress arrives in androgynous man/boy attire and firmly plants a kiss on his adolescent lips as they go off and skip into the sunset.
It didn't just push the envelope of the video medium - it blew the envelope up. It merged art and pornography and was played 24 hours a day on MTV. Never the actress (so they said) but always the supreme Movie Star, here we have Madonna starring in her own European art house flick with the greatest soundtrack that Frederick Hollander and Jule Stein could only dream of.
Peep show club facade of Open Your Heart.Whatever it was, Open Your Heart remains the greatest video of all time. Interesting that it never makes the list and somewhere in all that glory, Open Your Heart got lost. Sure, Papa Don't Preach was cinematic and her pro-life, pro-choice controversy reached above and beyond anything she had done before. Yes, Live to Tell marked the new Madonna and was brilliant in its stark simplicity. However, Open Your Heart is the real star here. I've always thought that Open Your Heart was a little too salacious for its time to get any sort of accolades. It slipped through the cracks before people knew what hit them. An athletic, strong peep show goddess in gold pasties and tassels; voyeurs loving, analyzing, enthralled, writing about, studying and beating off to her - men and women. A young boy waiting outside a porn theater before his mistress arrives in androgynous man/boy attire and firmly plants a kiss on his adolescent lips as they go off and skip into the sunset.
It didn't just push the envelope of the video medium - it blew the envelope up. It merged art and pornography and was played 24 hours a day on MTV. Never the actress (so they said) but always the supreme Movie Star, here we have Madonna starring in her own European art house flick with the greatest soundtrack that Frederick Hollander and Jule Stein could only dream of. Jean Baptiste Mondino and Madonna made a masterpiece here. From the blue light to the slipping off of the black wig to the skipping off into the sunset and everything in between. The perfect juxtaposition of filth and innocence. Madonna's body was so perfect and her skin so white, she was like a marble statue come to life. The choreography was mesmerizing and sexy - not that drill team shyt that people call choreography. This is the choreography of a film musical. Only a truly trained dancer could get away with it. A perfect breed of burlesque and strip tease yet 100% Madonna. It also marks the beginning of her classic chair routine, Juan.
American Vogue Open Your Heart video review.