Truth Or Dare Special – Part Two
MadonnaTribe keeps on celebrating the 20th anniversary of Truth Or Dare this week indulging in memories!
We had the chance to do an interview with Peter Morse, the lighting director of Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour about his Truth Or Dare experience.
MadonnaTribe meets lighting director Peter Morse
• MadonnaTribe: Working on the Blond Ambition Tour you were also in charge of the ligthing of the footage Alek Keshishian filmed for the “Truth or Dare” documentary.
How was that experience like?
Peter Morse: It was great, when they first started with the archival cameras which followed us on tour they said “we’re shooting behind the scene footage that will be put into a film” we all felt she had lost her mind (laughs).
We were all out there trying to be natural in front of the cameras while we were trying to do our work but obviously always aware of cameras looking at us.
One of my favourite scenes I should have been in got dropped.
The producer at the time called me one day saying “I want you to know one of my favourite scene got dropped from the black and white documentary footage” which is when we had our opening in Japan and in one of our first rehearsals in front of a partial audience, the first rehearsal with spotlights, we had a meeting in her dressing room right afterwards and it was a bit of a disaster.
There she confronted me and said “Peter what is going on with the spotlight? What is the story there?” and I replied “Japanese, they don’t understand me!, I know a little Japanese but not enough”.
She said: “Ah… ok, what will you do about that? What about an interpreter?” I said “well by the time the interpreter arrives…” you know it was a fun discussion, everyone was laughing.
They loved the scene but it got dropped.
The fun part of working with Alek was that he was there the entire time as was I so when he was developing his ideas for the live shoot in Paris, he would sit and talk to me about things he needed to change or alter for the film shoot.
The magic of that shoot is the fact we shot it on 35 millimiter film and that’s what made that so rich. To me, my favourite footage of anything I’ve been involved in, is that footage, because of the use of film opposed to video. We had some scary moments on Drowned World and it was all due to video. Film is so much more forgiving and it has a richer feel.
• MadonnaTribe: Was the whole show shot on 35 mm film?
Peter Morse: I’d love to see some of that footage that wasn’t use. Because obviously only pieces were used.
You know, the entire show is shot in 35mm and the irony is that it was never released and I think that it was probably one of the most beautifully shot shows.
The director of photography was brilliant. His name is Toby Philips. He did the Girlie Show also. He’s incredible.
We did also shoot on video the show live from Nice for HBO…
Tidbits from that ancient time when we used to watch films on VHS videos…
• When the film was released in UK cinemas on May 22 1991 the British Board of Film Classification gave
In Bed With Madonna a 18 Rating, due to some scenes that were believed to be
unsuitable for minors. When the documentary was released on VHS video on August 28 of that same year the film
carried the same 18 rating.
The release was succesful but in order to boost sales even more the video distributor
submitted to the BBFC a censured version in order to obtain a 15 rating, so that the film could also be sold
to minors. This version was distributed to UK stores on November 4th 1991 and came as a collectable
limited edition blue vhs
video. The title logo was also changed from the usual red to blue. It’s interesting to notice that the change of rating
consisted in deleting only 57 seconds of the movie… a few seconds in which Madonna joked about
incest and that famous scene featuring that popular glass bottle of Evian water.
And here’s that limited edition blue vhs!
• There is also a story linked to the US video release also knows as “the mystery of the ghost bonus scenes“.
Appearing on some videos but not on others although they were advertised on each and every video cover.
The two bonus clips, the full version of the Like A Prayer and Hanky Panky performances (only
few seconds are shown in the movie) were actually a real treat and really exclusive to this edition as they
have never appeared anywhere else, not even on the later official dvd releases around the world.
• More vintage VHS tapes shown below. These two are the first (1991) and last (2002) Italian editions of A Letto Con Madonna. Strangely enough, in the country where the Queen Of Pop caused controversy and had to defend herself with Italian media with the “Vatican Speech” featured in the film, the full uncensored version of this documentary was rated General viewing with no restrictions at all. “Sono molto felice di essere qui!”
