Love To Love You, Donna Summer

[DanaK]

Quote

Love to Love You, Donna Summer is an in-depth look at the iconic artist as her voice and artistry takes her from the avant-garde music scene in Germany, to the glitter and bright lights of dance clubs in New York. A deeply personal portrait of Summer on and off stage, the film features a wealth of photographs and never-before-seen home video footage – often shot by Summer herself. Through a rich window into the surprising range of her artistry, from songwriting to painting, Love to Love You, Donna Summer explores the highs and lows of a life lived on the global stage.

HBO documentary that premieres Saturday May 20 at 8pm ET

According to a review, this goes pretty deep into difficult topics, including sexual abuse and suicidal thoughts

[DanaK]

Trailer 

 

[DanaK]

A really good and interesting doc. I became aware of Donna in her disco phase so I didn’t really know about her earlier time in Europe. It’s too bad about her rift with the gay community as they seemed to be her strongest supporters. She probably should have addressed her supposed anti-gay comments a lot sooner than she did, though it didn’t seem to help

[Soapy Goddess]

Interesting, but terrible sound while singing on stage. There must be some type of sound editing they could have done in order to appreciate the full content. 

[chediavolo]

Did not like this one. There was a doc on her a while back that was better. I’ll have to watch this one again because I was getting bored and drifting off. One thing that sticks in my mind is in the beginning how she grabbed  her little daughters arm and flung her to the piano. The kid looked pretty scared. 

3 hours ago, Soapy Goddess said:

Interesting, but terrible sound while singing on stage. There must be some type of sound editing they could have done in order to appreciate the full content. 

I’d rather hear the recordings than the live performances so this was a turn off for me. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by chediavolo

[Shrek]

Gave up watching after 30 minutes.

[Soapy Goddess]

21 hours ago, chediavolo said:

Did not like this one. There was a doc on her a while back that was better. I’ll have to watch this one again because I was getting bored and drifting off. One thing that sticks in my mind is in the beginning how she grabbed  her little daughters arm and flung her to the piano. The kid looked pretty scared. 

I’d rather hear the recordings than the live performances so this was a turn off for me. 

Agree it was poorly done. Plus it took a while to realize who the heck was narrating, and what the relationship to the subject was. Besides the wonky sound, would it have killed them to label those talking? Overall, very disappointing. 

[kathe5133]

I lasted 15 minutes.  Boring.

[cpcathy]

I don’t feel this was a full, comprehensive documentary, and this was obviously their choice. Highlight her great songs, a couple husbands, some trouble with the LGBTQ community, all very rushed. By the time she passed I felt I needed to go Wikipedia to get the full story.

But, man, she did have so many songs!

[Enero]

20 hours ago, cpcathy said:

I don’t feel this was a full, comprehensive documentary, and this was obviously their choice. Highlight her great songs, a couple husbands, some trouble with the LGBTQ community, all very rushed. By the time she passed I felt I needed to go Wikipedia to get the full story.

But, man, she did have so many songs!

This. I knew of Donna Summer but I had no idea about her life and didn't know much about her career besides a few songs.  This documentary didn't provide much insight. 

Like others I didn't think this was well done.  It dropped in tidbits about her life, but was mainly a recap of all her music, which was great but I was expecting more. 

On 5/22/2023 at 3:42 AM, Soapy Goddess said:

Plus it took a while to realize who the heck was narrating, and what the relationship to the subject was. Besides the wonky sound, would it have killed them to label those talking? Overall, very disappointing. 

They did label who was talking. It was in the bottom left corner of the screen when the person started talking. It was a bit odd as most of the time with these documentaries they'll show the person who is talking and identify them with text on screen while they are on camera, but this documentary didn't do that. I'm guessing most of the people talking in this were interviewed over the phone maybe, which is why we didn't see everyone who was talking? 

Edited May 24, 2023 by Enero

[DanaK]

The directors talk about making the doc

https://deadline.com/2023/05/love-to-love-you-donna-summer-directors-interview-1235382445/

[Ottis]

On 5/24/2023 at 1:15 PM, Enero said:

Like others I didn't think this was well done.  It dropped in tidbits about her life, but was mainly a recap of all her music, which was great but I was expecting more. 

Agree. At first it talked about her music and how certain songs were groundbreaking and why. I liked that stuff. But it quickly became a series of seemingly random stories of her life, and the music took a back seat. The first 20 minutes were OK, the rest, meh. Also, I really didn't understand the rift with the LBGTQ community. Why did she say those things? What did she really believe? No idea.

[DanaK]

8 minutes ago, Ottis said:

Also, I really didn't understand the rift with the LBGTQ community. Why did she say those things? What did she really believe? No idea.

Probably because she become a born-again Christian 

[Ottis]

17 hours ago, DanaK said:

Probably because she become a born-again Christian 

And then she is quoted as saying she regrets the rift, and that she didn’t mean to denigrate the community that gave her her start. So did she become unborn again? Did she not understand the impact of her words? Was she misquoted? That’s what I mean by it being unclear.