The
music video for Madonna’s song Vogue
was directed by David flincher in 1990 and was shot entirely in black and
white. To accommodate this, the dancers and Madonna wear monochrome clothing,
especially black and white so that the colours are bolder and contrast each
other more. Similarly, the majority of shots are taken in front of a black
backdrop with low and soft lighting.
The
main focus of the video is on the dancers and Madonna although there is also a
maid and a butler cleaning a grand house, giving the impression of luxury. This
idea of grandeur is strengthened through the costume style, with the mean
wearing sharp suits and Madonna wearing fancy and stylish dresses and a suit
too. Madonna is the main focus and she is a sexualised woman, wearing clothes
like the iconic sheer lace blouse and cone bra. The dancers are all male and
their dancing puts particular emphasis on their hands. This is known as voguing
and is a style of dance that ‘is a highly stylized, modern house dance that evolved
out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1980s and was
invented by gay black and Latino Americans’. Madonna came across this dance and
felt that it needed mainstream exposure and from that decision, ‘Vogue’ was
born. Voguing takes the model’s poses from the magazine Vogue and puts them
into this stylised dance as shown in the first scene of the music video where
the male dancers strike poses in time with the beat of the song. This theme
runs through the whole video, along with artwork and statues that put emphasis
on holding rigid poses. During the song, Madonna is lip synching while she
dances and while she walks and poses around different sets. There are about
five different locations in the video but the watcher gets the impression that
they are all in a grand house, furthering the idea of luxury. Madonna’s style
changes throughout the video too, as she does impressions and mentions
different celebrities (eg. Marilyn Monroe)
The opening cross-cuts between the
men voguing and a shot of Madonna from the back dancing sultrily in a glamourous
and bejewelled dress using a cross-fading effect. The shots of Madonna are
stationary but the shot of the men is following along the line in a tracking
arc shot. The editing varies between fast and slow edits, often being edited to
the beat in a way that draws attention to the beat of the song. Towards the end
of the music video, there is a shot of a man dancing that has a fast fade
in/out to give the impression of strobe lighting and this may also have jump
cuts.
The cinematography puts a lot of
focus on the hand poses and Madonna’s face as she lip-syncs. To keep the shots
dynamic and interesting, the camera zooms slowly and there is a variety of
close ups and mid shots as well as different camera angles between shots.
