Madonna

Produced, Written & Directed by Jason Goodman

Madonna was the first star with an active career to agree to do the show, and the network kept reminding me the show had to be great – after all, it debut date was August 16 – her 40th birthday. I’m not sure I’ve ever been under quite so much pressure, and to complicate matters, I was making The Eden Alternative Film in Indiana at the same time. I renting a cabin in scenic Brown County, just outside of Bloomington, for the July 4th weekend, and started a manic five week writing and editing craze to create the show you see here.

While we were waiting for Madonna to arrive for the interview, her guru/publicist, Liz Rosenberg, told me that if I asked one wrong question, Madonna might get up and leave. I remember going around the corner to a little neighborhood antique store, and talking the owner into letting me borrow a toddler-sized rocking chair, so Lola would have someplace to chill, and I could hopefully win some brownie points with her mother. Madonna even has a picture of a two-year-old Lola in that chair somewhere, although I doubt she remembers our time together. But I certainly do.

Click here to watch my favorite act. Click here to watch the whole show.










Behind The Music: Madonna • My Favorite Act • Written, Produced & Directed by Jason Goodman

Madonna had a great deal of influence who appeared on her Behind The Music – but we had no restrictions on what we could cover. That said, the 40-year Madonna who was a new mother and about to release her most spiritual cd, Ray of Light, was very far away from the sexual provocateur she had been during the Erotica phase. The network spoke with me beforehand about this – suggesting it was so sensitive that perhaps it would be best if I didn’t ask her about it at all.

But I decided to talk sex with Madonna, and it was the moment that she settled into the interview and started to really engage me. I’ve always thought her answers about her Sex Book days are some of the most interesting and insightful parts of the interview.

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[watch the whole show].








Behind The Music: Madonna • Written, Produced & Directed by Jason Goodman

When people ask me about my all-time favorite show, I never have an easy answer – I’m always most in love with whatever I’m working on at the moment. But I was at the top of my game during Madonna’s Behind The Music. As we moved into the editing phase, my cat Gina and I moved into a hotel in LA, and I started a 24-hour production cycle that didn’t end until a few days before the show aired. At the height of the frenzy I was running three simultaneous edit rooms pretty much around the clock. When you’re in the middle of that kind of madness, you really can’t see the forest for the trees. It was only when I saw the show debut a few nights later that I saw what we had created… and, as the old saying goes, it was good. For all these reasons,
this show may indeed by my all-time fav.

The other great thing about doing this show was the people I got to meet and spend time with, like Rosie O’Donnell, Jean Paul Gaultier and her Rabbi, Michael Berg. But my favorite person from this show is my friend Donna DeLory, who, along with Nikki Haris, have been Madonna’s back-up singers since close to the beginning. Donna is a great artist in her own right – and her album Bliss is still one of the best albums I’ve ever heard.


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