The Evening Standard ‘Hollywood’ review

LEGENDS IN VOGUE FOR MADGE
By Valentine Low, Evening Standard,
16 June 2003
They were the biggest names in the glory days of old Hollywood, glamorous, independent, ambitious and professional.
Now Madonna is using the iconic image of stars like Jean Harlow, Ginger Rogers and Mae West in her latest video.
The video for the single Hollywood features high-glamour dresses, sparkling jewellery, classic hairstyles and moody cinematic lighting as she takes on the role of – and pays homage to – the movie diva.
It is not the first time she has done so. Back in 1990 Madonna namechecked a host of classic movie stars in hit single Vogue, encouraging listeners to strike a pose, and doing just that in a glammed-up video.
Thirteen years on the obsession is still strong. In the video for Hollywood, taken from the album American Life, Madonna dresses as a string of famous actresses from the Twenties to the Seventies – wearing £13 million worth of diamonds.
The vintage jewellery had originally adorned the stars in movies.
It includes a 25-carat ring and a bracelet Mae West wore in the 1933 film She Done Him Wrong, and jewels that belonged to Ginger Rogers and Jean Harlow – the original platinum blonde.
The video is directed by an old collaborator, photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who shot the erotically-charged video to her 1990 single Justify My Love, and took the photos at her wedding to Guy Ritchie.
The return to glamour is a stark contrast to the image Madonna portrayed in the video to her last single, American Life, an anti-war protest in which she dressed up in combat fatigues and threw a grenade at George W Bush (she withdrew the video when war broke out in Iraq).
Her new song Hollywood is a sour look at the disappointments faced by many who try to make it in Tinseltown – something Madonna, with a number of movie flops to her name from Shanghai Surprise to Swept Away – may, perhaps, sympathise with.