If history says that the voice of Grace Slick, lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, triggered a thousand acid trips, let the record record that Donna Summer’s voice triggered a thousand orgasms. Probably more.
Summer, sex goddess of the 1970s, practically seemed to have a few orgasms herself as she hummed through groundbreaking disco tracks like “Bad Girl,” “I Feel Love,” “On the Radio,” and many more. HBO’s new documentary biopic I love to love you, Donna Summer takes its title from one of Summer’s biggest hits and aims to cancel out the glare of colored gels and disco balls to take the complicated woman beyond persona.
“I’m trying to figure out the many pieces of who mother was,” says Summer’s daughter, co-director Brooklyn Sudano, at the beginning of the film. “She was complicated.” The statement echoes one Summer herself has often made: “What you see is not who I am.” I love to love you does his best to unravel the contradictions of one of pop music’s most important – and most underrated – singers. The film does a great job of evoking Summer’s mystique and manages to expose some tragic episodes from her personal life, even if it never goes as deep as it would like.
Musical Boundary Breaker
Born in working-class Massachusetts, Summer showed musical promise early on as a church singer. Her pursuit of fame led her to Europe, where she found success as a model and actress in musicals such as Her. Her powerful vocals caught the attention of composer Giorgio Moroder, who invited her to participate in some experimental dance numbers.
Their creative collaboration resulted in “Love to Love You”, a song that was groundbreaking both for its disco sound cast and for Summer’s ultra-sexual vocals, including the aforementioned orgasms. Hit after hit followed, with the singer transitioning from one of disco’s defining voices to a feminist pop rocker in the 1980s with her song “She Works Hard for the Money.”
As co-directed by Roger Ross Williams and Sudano, I love to love you uses an aesthetic similar to another rock doc biopic, Amy. The directors choose to tell their story through as much archival footage as possible, with the usual talking heads telling Summer’s story off-screen. Other than a few interstitials from Brooklyn, her sisters Mimi and Amanda, and Summer’s widower Bruce Sudano, Summer has mastered the screen alone.
And she commands. Summer projected pure eroticism through her music – a trait she resented from the start. As much as she yearned to be a mega star, the singer always believed that her status as a disco queen overshadowed her gifts as a singer and songwriter. That awkward combination of artist and persona led to chronic melancholy, which plagued Summer for life. At one point in the film, Mimi, her oldest daughter, recalls how touring kept her mother absent for most of her childhood. The few times Summer came home, she spent most of her time in bed, exhausted.
The singer’s audio diaries recount an episode in which, at the height of her fame, she tried to throw herself out of a New York hotel window. Only the accidental arrival of a housekeeper saved her life. Summer also felt ashamed of sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of a youth pastor. Her family believes the abuse not only contributed to her struggle with depression, but also led to volatile relationships with men.
Some of I love to love you‘s most telling moments come in the form of outtakes from Summer’s video recordings. Between takes, Williams and Sudano take extreme close-ups of her eyes, darting around like those of an insecure child. The directors let the shot play as Summer begins to perform a song, and the transformation from subdued to radiant is shocking. Like everything in the film, these scenes underscore her remarkable strength as a performer.
Complicated woman
But if I love to love you manages to pay homage to Donna Summer’s influence and showbiz legacy, it falters a bit in unraveling her personal confabulations. Bruce Sudano recalls the extremes of their marriage, including thrown pots and pans, as well as visits from the police. The pair managed to stay together for over 30 years, though the movie never explains how or if the pair ever stabilized their relationship.
Mimi recalls that when she confessed that she was also sexually assaulted by one of Summer’s employees, her mother hyperventilated and left the room. The movie never really explains how or if Summer ever offered support to her daughter, or if the two ever discussed the abuse at length. All of her children describe Summer as somewhat distant; nowhere in the film do they say if they ever confronted their mother about emotional detachment.
Williams and Sudano also save Summer’s most controversial moment for late in the film. In the mid-1980s, Summer became a born-again Christian and began touting her faith in concerts. That led to an incident on a show when Summer remarked that “God didn’t make Adam and Steve. He made Adam & Eve.” Needless to say, her words did not sit well with Summer’s many queer fans, who have already struggled against the devastation of AIDS. Even worse, the singer chose to ignore the comment’s immediate backlash, leading to reports stating that Summer also believed AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexuality — a popular sentiment among Christian leaders of the day.
After protests from AIDS activists and a string of canceled shows, Summer denied the AIDS-as-punishment rumors. Still, her milquetoast refutation that “A few of the people I write with are gay” came too little, too late. The controversy tarnished her image and remains a topic of debate long after her death in 2012. Make no mistake: this one blunder is mainly the reason why Summer’s influence and talent are often overlooked.
The flawed legacy of Donna Summer
In a way, the way Sudano and Williams (who mentions it is gay) handle the “Adam and Steve” episode illustrates the biggest flaw of I love to love you. The film brings up the point that Summer realized she made a terrible mistake in making her comment, her handling of the controversy, and it haunted her for the rest of her life. But the movie never reveals how Summer Actually felt about queer people, their rights, her comfort with same-sex relationships, or her status as a gay icon. The film highlights the contradiction, but fails to dissect it.
On the other hand, perhaps no one – including Summer – could ever reconcile such complications. Great artists, their lives and work are often teeming with contradictions. Perhaps that is what gives their art such power. In case of I love to love you, Donna Summerthe film affirms the subject’s importance and influence in pop music, how she embodied sexual liberation, her personal difficulties and how she struggled to bear those burdens. But for all the love and memories friends and family here provide, Donna Summer still feels, at her absolute, as hidden as a singer on the radio. One that will no doubt continue to inspire orgasms for years to come.
I love to love you, Donna Summer premieres on HBO May 20 at 8 p.m. and streaming on HBO Max.