MADONNA’S NEW MOVES
Intimate concert flick captures alter ego ‘Madame X’
Madonna fans, thank your lucky stars: “Madame X,” a new film capturing her 11th concert tour, is finally out.
The “concert documentary” comes more than a year and a half after the tour was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic and is now streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
Before the global health crisis brought the curtain down on the “Madame X Tour,” it was a series of pricey, intimate performances in theaters across the U.S. and Europe.
A pair of Brooklyn-based filmmakers captured the spectacle from September 2019 until March 2020.
The politically tinged show centered on Madonna’s alter ego du jour, “Madame X,” and her artistic calling “to disturb the peace.”
Its smaller-stage format allowed the show to be seen by just under 180,000 fans — a fraction of the more than 3.5 million who paid to see Madonna’s record-setting, multicontinental “Sticky & Sweet Tour” in 2008-09.
Directed by SKNX — the duo Nuno Xico and Sasha Kasiuha — and Madonna’s show photographer-turned-videographer Ricardo Gomes, “Madame X” was filmed mostly during the Lisbon leg of the tour, in January 2020.
To SKNX (pronounced “skanks”), “Madame X” also represents a “full circle” around the Grammy Award-winner pop superstar’s career.
Xico and Kasiuha, who are also credited as editors, opened the film with a montage of the most sensational moments — and unforgiving media coverage — in the 63-year-old artist’s life.
The introduction ends with Madonna proclaiming that “the most provocative thing I’ve ever done was to stick around.”
For decades, Madonna has been fighting “for the same rights, for the same movements, and for the same ideal,” Xico told the Daily News.
“Basically, her message has been consistent,” added the 43-year-old Portuguese-born director, who has worked with Madonna for the last eight years.
Although Madonna’s reputation as a perfectionist precedes her, the team behind “Madame X” welcomed it.
Kasiuha said the star’s work ethic is “the best part” about his job, because she knows what she wants, but she’s also open to hearing different opinions.
“She was bringing ideas, we were bringing ideas,” the 26-yearold Ukrainian native said.
“She’s actually very collaborative,” agreed Xico. “She knows what she wants but she’s super open to ideas. She likes that people actually bring her ideas, even if they’re stupid . ... It’s not just her being like ‘I want this’ and then we do it. It’s more of ‘Let’s make this the best and we’ll get there.’ ”
Kasiuha — who was born the same year Madonna released her sixth studio album, “Bedtime Stories” — joined the project a year ago. Since then, he and Xico have worked closely with Madonna, “bringing her vision into fruition.”
For months during the pandemic, the duo, who now share an apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn, worked on the film at a Los Angeles studio.
Gomes joined the project in 2019 when he was hired to shoot behind the scenes of “World of Madame X,” a 23-minute documentary, directed by Xico, in which Madonna described the inspiration for her 14th studio album.
The Portuguese born, fully-tattooed 31-year-old also appreciated Madonna’s collaborative work ethic.
“Sometimes I agree with a lot of things. Sometimes I disagree with a lot of things, [but] I always express my opinion and my feelings. I completely understand and respect the basis of her work. Because if she made it until today, it’s because there was a reason behind why she’s doing the way she’s doing it,” Gomes explained.
Gomes confessed he didn’t even listen to Madonna as a kid. “I was always into rock’n’roll music. Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan. Kind of a different world,” he told The News. But that doesn’t color his view of the singer.
“She’s an artist, and she has a very rock ‘n’ roll way of living and working,” he said.
“I’ve always respected her career and her as an artist, and I always kind of knew what she fought for.”
That is made clear throughout “Madame X,” Gomes added.
“It’s supposed to create different messages when it comes to expressing yourself. And freedom of expression and believing and fighting for what you believe in ... and want to change,” he said.
“Basically, what she’s been fighting for all of her career.”