‘Love to Love You, Donna Summer’ Documentary Examines Icon’s Career – Rolling Stone

This weekend, Donna Summer season’s trailblazing profession and sophisticated life will get the documentary therapy with HBO’s Like to Love You, Donna Summer season. Summer season’s daughter Brooklyn Sudano and the movie’s co-director Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams study the disco icon’s life and provide an intimate portrait of a non-public, virtually secretive lady, whose relationship to fame, the individuals who knew her and even her personal self remained difficult till she died of lung dancer at age 63.

Archival interviews with Summer season and never-before-scene footage form a lot of the documentary, which is deepened via interviews together with her daughters, siblings, collaborators, and exes. Like to Love You, Donna Summer season, which premiered on the Berlin Worldwide Movie Competition earlier this yr, tracks Summer season’s whole profession as she went from a determine in Germany’s avant-garde scene and grew into a world sensation, all whereas navigating a fancy inside journey. Right here’s what we discovered from the brand new documentary.

She was secretive — even together with her personal children.
The documentary highlights the truth that Summer season was a deeply non-public particular person, even together with her personal kids, particularly as a result of she was so well-known once they had been younger. “We had been by no means allowed in her room,” Summer season’s daughter Amanda Sudano Ramirez remembers within the movie. “We’d discover out issues by studying newspaper articles that they had clipped out and hidden in locations.” Summer season’s daughters even found “Like to Love You,” the singer’s influential disco hit from 1975, on their very own.

Summer season tried suicide in 1976.
As her marriage to Sommer ended, Summer season’s profession was reaching new heights. However beneath the disco queen glitz, the star was exhausted and worn out by the trade. Whereas in New York, she tried to leap from a lodge window. At first, her foot obtained caught within the curtain. As she tried to maneuver round it, a lodge housekeeper entered the room.

“One other 10 seconds and I’d have been gone,” Summer season had mentioned in an archival interview used for the documentary.

She suffered sexual and bodily abuse from trusted figures in her life.
The documentary sheds mild on a few of the darker moments in Summer season’s life. Summer season claimed she had been molested by a minister as a young person. The allegations had been confirmed by her brother, who mentioned that the minister “did the Satan’s work higher than most.” Later in life, boyfriend Peter Mühldorfer would turn out to be violent in the direction of Summer season attributable to jealousy at her quickly rising fame. Supervisor Susan Munao recalled a cellphone name she acquired detailing how Mühldorfer had overwhelmed his girlfriend till she was unconscious. Mühldorfer confirmed that he had laid arms on Summer season, stating within the movie “I hit her and I by no means might forgive myself.”

She by no means envisioned motherhood for herself.
As each her first husband Helmuth Sommer and first youngster Mimi Sommer recall, there was a “hearth” sooner or later star that made her really feel fairly distant from the truth of being a mom. In her personal phrases, Summer season had by no means pictured having a baby till it occurred. After she and Sommer first separated, Mimi went to go and dwell together with her grandparents primarily. Summer season felt nice guilt for leaving her youngster in Massachusetts and wrote the observe “Mimi’s Music” impressed by her emotions concerning the scenario.

The singer had director goals.
When Summer season would go on the highway, she’s carry a film digital camera and make brief movies together with her household, associates and tourmates. The documentary options footage of a few of the foolish, newbie movies she would make with the folks in her life. She even informed Johnny Carson throughout an interview that she had arrange a studio in her residence and was learning to be a director.