Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé
Make no mistake, this movie is not a music documentary. It is not a documentary about a concert, such as Shut Up and Play the Hits, using the show as a jumping off point to investigate the artist(s), their history, and their creative process. Nor is it a documentary about an artist, such as Katy Perry: Part of Me, using a mixture of concert, interview, and behind the scenes footage to give a more multidimensional impression of a public figure. Rather, Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé is a concert film. Nothing more, nothing less. The concert it archives may be one of high cultural importance, and its central artist one of the biggest stars in the world, but as a piece of documentary filmmaking it isn’t anything special. In fact, it is actually pretty bad.
There is nothing wrong with being a concert film, per se. Generally speaking, I think the best music documentaries are the ones that take a concert, or series of concerts, and elevate the material beyond just the performance itself. The Last Waltz, for example, uses interviews in between songs to tell the story of The Band and how this came to be their last show together. Gimme Shelter is as much about the wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to get the tour put together as it is the concerts themselves. That being said, I can appreciate that Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense is frequently placed in the pantheon of great music documentaries despite, like Homecoming, being nothing more than a concert film. The problem is Homecoming is no Stop Making Sense.
Homecoming is, technically speaking, a mess. The cinematography is awful. While the shots are framed well and the spectacle of the concert is captured in full, the visual language of the piece is where things really fall apart. Rather than creating a unified look for the piece, the footage is graded in a multitude of distinct ways for reasons I can’t entirely understand. At times, it is in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio with close to true color. At other times, it stays 16:9 but in black and white. It is also frequently in 4:3 aspect ratio with faded colors and vignetting, emulating vintage 8mm home movies. Given that Homecoming was likely all shot using (nearly) identical digital cameras, why have all these different looks? Normally, this would be done to convey some kind of narrative meaning. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, for example, aspect ratios are tied to what era a scene is taking place in. However, in Homecoming the switch from one look to another is done arbitrarily. Was this some nod to Instagram filters, a mainstay of the Coachella festival, or a lack of faith in the visual interest of the base material without some artifice? Either way it is bad filmmaking.
The editing is also questionable. During the performance itself, which makes up the bulk of the movie, the edits, like the cinematography choices, rarely feel motivated by movement or story and, as such, feel haphazard and lazy. The movie also cuts freely between the two weekends Beyoncé performed. This wouldn’t be a problem, necessarily, except that the two concerts had starkly different color palettes for their costuming. Without providing any explanation as to why, a shot with a mountain of back-up dancers bedecked in yellow would cross cut to the same dancers all dressed in pink. It wasn’t until I looked up the show details after the movie was over that I understood why the colors were changing. To me, this further demonstrates that Homecoming wasn’t made for the typical viewer, like myself, who wouldn’t have that kind of meta-knowledge, but rather for the invested fan who wanted to experience, or re-experience, Beyoncé’s legendary performance. In other words, a concert film, not a documentary.
Where there were documentary elements, showing some small behind the scenes bits, it is so hopelessly self aggrandizing it is borderline offensive. This would be slightly more forgivable if the movie wasn’t by Beyoncé about Beyoncé, but having most of the interstitial moments be interviews of her collaborators gushing over how amazing she is made it feel like the movie had more to do with her ego than a genuine attempt at documentary storytelling or an effort to capture an ephemeral moment in time. When Beyoncé does offer some insights into the shaping of the show, always as a voice over, a heavenly music accompanies it in an incredibly unsubtle attempt to give her a saintly aura. “Deify her, her work is important!” the movie screams at you. It is bad enough when her fans treat her like a holy figure, when she is just a very talented musician, but now she is doing the same herself, by proxy, through the movie. Gross.
The little that is redeemable with this project is the concert itself. The music, for the most part, serves as a compelling reminder of why Beyoncé has been such a force for so many years. Bringing together her solo music, her collaborations with Jay-Z, a surprise cameo from Destiny’s Child, as well as other pieces from prominent black musicians of history makes for an enjoyable 2+ hours of musical content. It doesn’t surprise me at all that this documentary heralded the release of a live album from the same event. Similarly, it is clear to me, beyond its import in breaking racial barriers, why the concert was such a big deal: it seemed like it would have been awesome, and perhaps even awe inspiring, to behold live. I just wish the piece had captured it better.
Would Recommend: If you love Beyoncé.
Would Not Recommend: If you prize good filmmaking in your documentaries.