Here we have the music video for the song American Pie by notable American recording artist Madonna from 2000, so this one is already almost 20 years old. And these 4.5 minutes were a pretty big hit back then, well pretty much everywhere it got number 1 on the charts, but not in America. This may have had to do with Americans preferring the also very good original by Don McLean or also that Madonna was generally not an artist like Rihanna or Katy Perry these days whose singles made it to number 1 on a regular basis, her albums yes, her singles not so much. Anyway, I was a bit surprised to see this one here being directed by Philipp Stölzl. I know him as a filmmaker and have seen some of his other stuff, but I was not aware he was such a prolific music video director working with some of the great ones too. So it surprises me even more that he never made or tried the transition to Hollywood in terms of filmmaking with the contacts he obviously had. Anyway, back to the video here. There is not too much to say about the song. I really like it, in terms of catchiness, melody and lyrics. And it also fits Madonna's voice very well. As for the video, I found it very spot-on and intelligent. The focus is on America in the sense of Americans, traditional and progressive. You see people apparently running a gun store early on, you see firefighters, you see young people with many tattoos, you see gays kissing each other. It is really well done, the split screen works pretty nicely too. In short, you see all the people who define America these days and all that without the blatant "inyourfaceness" by Childish Gambino in his recent very successful song release on America that everybody talks about. The latter is all style over substance, this one here is 100% substance. This is everything a cover should be, not my number 1 favorite from Madonna, but top5 probably. i really think you should check this out. i think it is going more under the radar than it should now because of how old it is already, especially new generations may want to give it a look to see America around 2000 is not so different compared to today's. Another thing I really liked here is how Madonna (also really like her looks here, subtle but stylish and working very well wih the subject, she was around the age of 40 back then) kept out all stupid political messages and propaganda, but just focused on the impressions instead. Really very well done. One of the best short films of its year and perhaps the best music video and song.
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