Madonna at the Movies : 25th Anniversary of 'Body Of Evidence'
In the courtroom drama 'Body Of Evidence', Rebecca Carlson (Madonna) is represented by lawyer Frank Dulaney (Willem Dafoe) in a murder trial. Carlson and Dulaney enter into a torrid relationship
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In the courtroom drama 'Body Of Evidence', Rebecca Carlson (Madonna) is represented by lawyer Frank Dulaney (Willem Dafoe) in a murder trial. Carlson and Dulaney enter into a torrid relationship that strains client-attorney privelege and contravenes the ethics of the bar. The film was released in January 1993 but performed poorly at the box-office after concerned censors took a hatchet to it.

"Back in 1979, four years before the release of her self-titled debut album, Madonna starred in barebones indie drama A Certain Sacrifice. She played a Lower East Side resident living with three “love slaves” (one male, one female, one transgender). Capitalising on her first flush of fame, the film-makers rushed it out in 1985, but it’s safe to say that it wasn’t exactly acclaimed as a lost classic.

Nonetheless, for years Madonna maintained an acting career alongside her musical one. Some of of her films performed decently at the box office and – shock horror – even got good reviews, like the 1985 comedy Desperately Seeking Susan. More frequently however, her efforts were widely ridiculed. Besides voicing a character in 2006’s family cartoon Arthur and the Invisibles and appearing opposite Lady Gaga on a Saturday Night Live skit, Madonna has laid her acting career to rest after enduring a weapons-grade trashing for her turn as a snooty socialite in then husband Guy Ritchie’s 2002 romance Swept Away.

It’s therefore little wonder that Swept Away isn’t included in Body of Work: A Madonna Retrospective, a season of films at New York’s Metrograph purporting to showcase Madonna’s “calculated, cohesive canon”. Together, the seven selections (Desperately Seeking Susan, Who’s That Girl, Dick Tracy, Shadows and Fog, A League of Their Own, Body of Evidence and Dangerous Game) prove that while she never threatened to become the next Meryl Streep, Madonna’s acting might not actually be that bad."

- Nigel M. Smith, The Guardian

Rosanna Arquette & Madonna in 'Desperately Seeking Susan'

'Body Of Evidence' is based on an original story by Brad Mirman who'd caused a stir within Hollywood circles by scripting Carl Schenkel's mystery sleeper 'Knight Moves' (1992). It stars the Queen of Pop, Louise 'Madonna' Ciccone (born August 16, 1958, Bay City, Michigan, U.S.), who was creating major controversy at the time in a variety of ways. Songs like 'Like A Virgin' (1984), 'Express Yourself' (1989), 'Like A Prayer' (1989), 'Justify My Love' (1990) and 'Bad Girl' (1992) had invited widespread condemnation from the Catholic Church, Ronald Reagan supporters and America's Moral Majority. Her videos were on the edge, her fashions were cutting edge and her new book 'Sex' (1992 - parodied for horror fans by punk musician Linnea Quigley as 'Skin') was too much for some conservatives to handle. She admired the work of Uli Edel who'd made two highly controversial dramas, 'Christiane F. – We Children From Bahnhof Zoo' (1981) with music by David Bowie and Wim Wenders' regular composer Jurgen Knieper, and 'Last Exit To Brooklyn' (1989) which took the difficult typewriter prose of Hubert Selby Jr. (long called unfilmable, "typewriter" prose a reference to the "spontaneous" prose of Jack Kerouac) and crafted a stunning piece of cinema with music from Mark Knopfler. Madonna also embarked upon another bold new project with underground filmmaker Abel Ferrara, the sado-masochistic film circle expose 'Dangerous Game' (1993).

"My limits, once again, I define in terms of being an artist. My limits are: “Am I being true to myself? Is this what I want to say? Is this what I want to do?” And if it’s not and I can’t be proud of it then I don’t want to do it ... In my opinion, it’s the best film role that I’ve been offered, and it gave me a chance to really do more than I’ve been given the chance to do before as an actress."

- Madonna on 'Body Of Evidence', Sky Magazine

Madonna

Jennifer Jason Leigh in 'Last Exit To Brooklyn'

'Borderline' - Madonna

For 'Body Of Evidence', Edel brought in Willem Dafoe, a strange looking actor originating from the underground art scene who hailed from Appleton, Wisconsin (a ferry ride from west Michigan). The supporting cast includes Joe Mantegna, Anne Archer, Julianne Moore, Stan Shaw, Charles Hallahan, Lillian Lehman, Timi Prulhiere, Jeff Perry, Mark Rolston, Richard Riehle, Jürgen Prochnow and Frank Langella. The music is composed by industrial musician Graeme Revell of SPK.

Madonna & Willem Dafoe

'Aura' - Lady Gaga

Madonna has continued to push the envelope in more ways that one, inspiring a generation of music-based performance artists while drawing together elements from underground arts scenes and neglected fringe movements. 'Body Of Evidence' is one of her defining cinematic works and it remains one of Edel's most purely entertaining pictures. Forget 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' (2015) and all that pseudo-kinky nonsense, this is the real deal from the glory days of the late night thriller.

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Willem Dafoe : The Director's Actor

Working Man - Trials & Tribulations

Ryan Reynolds, Hayden Panettiere & Willem Dafoe gather for Dennis Lee's 'Fireflies In The Garden' (2008)

"That’s a whole story. That was a whole experience. I’m working at The Wooster Group, and through a series of weird events—because I’m not really soliciting work so much—they say, “Oh, would you like to work?” And I was very happy, because I liked ‘The Deer Hunter,’ and [director Michael Cimino] had just come off the Academy Award [for ‘The Deer Hunter’]. A week later, we were shooting. We were going to shoot in Kalispell, in Montana, this beautiful landscape. It was a special Western, it was going to be great. Even though I had a small role, I didn’t care.

Well, all of a sudden, my small role becomes huge. I’m only supposed to be there for a couple weeks here, a break, then a couple weeks, and then I’m done. So I walk away from The Wooster Group, saying, “Excuse me, I’ll be back in a couple weeks.” And I get there, and they rip up my contract and say, “Baby, you’re here.” So I call home and say, “Hey. [Laughs.] I don’t know…” And they’re like, “What are you doing? You said you were gonna…” I said, “It’s changed.” And they said, “Okay, we’ll wait for you.” Well, it ended up being three months. And it could’ve been eight if I hadn’t been fired, but I was fired one day because we were sitting in a lighting setup, and someone told me a joke. I laughed. Cimino, in a very agitated state, at this point—previous to that, I got along with him great—he turned around, told me to step out, and they put me on a plane. Last laugh, maybe? I mean, I don’t like to gloat, because that movie has some things to recommend. It wasn’t my absolute favorite."

- Willem Dafoe, The A.V. Club

"It's written and directed by Paul Auster. It stars Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe, Vanessa Redgrave and Mira Sorvino. But 'Lulu on the Bridge' (1998) can't find a distributor here or in the States. Why? Apparently the film's just too`diffcult' ... here's a sad fable from movieland."

- Kevin Jackson, The Independent

"Willem Dafoe spoke to the press this afternoon, answering questions about his diverse 40-year career which has brought him a total three Oscar nominations and seen him work with such filmmakers as Tony Scott, William Friedkin, Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Alan Parker, David Lynch, Julian Schnabel, Anthony Minghella, David Cronenberg, Abel Ferrara and Lars von Trier.

A jocular Dafoe wouldn’t be led on favorites though. “Part of being an actor is not having a preference. You love what you’re doing and commit. I don’t try to compare, it’s too depressing. If you have favorites then you try to repeat… Yes, some are more dear to me, but I’d be loath to name them.”

He allowed he likes “personal filmmakers” like Danish bad boy von Trier who directed him in Manderlay, Antichrist and Nymphomaniac Vol II. “Lars has got a beautiful command of what is cinematic. He’s one of the greats. I hope to work with him again. The experiences I had with him, I really enjoyed him. He’s a good example of someone who is passionate and has a command and is fun to be around.”

Dafoe said he enjoys both big and small parts, “I feel very comfortable with that role. I like being a color in a painting.” He also talked about inhabiting roles: “Jesus, that was complicated,” he said about his transformation in Scorsese’s Last Temptation — and eliciting a laugh from the press corps.

But don’t expect him to migrate to television any time soon. “I’m not attracted naturally to television. I really think there’s a difference between television and cinema. Lately, a lot of energy and resources are going to television. It sits in the culture in a more popular way than film. But I still find many opportunities in film and I think film has a special power TV almost never has to create a mystery and poetry. I’m more narrative obsessed.”

- Nancy Tartaglione, Deadline

"Willem Dafoe has made a career for himself that's a bit like Harvey Keitel's. He works on big films and small films. He has directors he always returns to - Paul Schrader, Abel Ferrara, Wes Anderson - and he likes to work with world cinema's great intellectuals (Werner Herzog, Theo Angelopoulos, Hector Babenco, Lars von Trier). He seems like the kind of guy who'll try anything once."

- Karen Taylor, Movie News

Genrebuster

Walter Hill's 'Streets Of Fire' (1984)

Willem Dafoe, John Waters & Johnny Depp

Brad Johnson, Danny Glover & Willem Dafoe in John Milius' 'Flight Of The Intruder' (1991)

Willem Dafoe & Mickey Rourke in Roger Donaldson's 'White Sands' (1991)

Harrison Ford & Willem Dafoe in Phillip Noyce's 'Clear And Present Danger' (1994)

Willem Dafoe in Mary Harron's 'American Psycho' (2000)

Night Crawlers : Willem Dafoe & Steve Buscemi (director of 'Animal Factory', 2000)

Willem Dafoe in Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man' Trilogy

Willem Dafoe & Ray Liotta in Tim Hunter's 'Control' (2004)

Willem Dafoe & Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's 'Inside Man' (2006)

Willem Dafoe, Nicolas Cage & Christopher Matthew Cook in Paul Schrader's 'Dog Eat Dog' (2016)

Willem Dafoe & Adrien Brody in Wes Anderson's 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' (2014)

"The Florida Project is the newest effort from the director Sean Baker, the master of micro-budgeted storytelling whose films focus on lives most Americans might not think about. His movies Starlet (2012) and Tangerine (2015) were made for next-to-no money (the latter was shot entirely on an iPhone) and starred first-time actors; both are among the best offerings of their respective years. The Florida Project is a comparatively epic production, even featuring a couple of well-known actors (Willem Dafoe and Caleb Landry Jones), but that wider scope matches Baker’s ambitions. His latest film is an intelligent, unpatronizing look at life on the margins, told from a child’s-eye view without ignoring the bleak realities she faces."

- David Sims, The Atlantic

Willem Dafoe & Brooklynn Prince in Sean Baker's 'The Florida Project' (2017)

Willem Dafoe with old friend Wim Wenders {director of 'Faraway, So Close', 1993}

Wild Ride

Coming soon ... 'Aquaman'