Beyoncé’s work as a movie director rivals her work as a musician
Like many people, I became aware of Beyoncé as a director in 2016, when she released an hourlong video experience for Lemonade, labeled a “visual album.” It wasn’t her first visual album: She’d released one for 2013’s Beyoncé. And she wasn’t the only director on Lemonade: Six fellow directors worked with her. But still, it made an impression on me.Lemonade is a short film of unprecedented ambition, supported by a level of resources Black woman creators rarely get to access. It’s a poetic fever dream, both a broader story about Black women’s strength, suffering, joy, and healing in the United States, and an intimate portrayal of Beyoncé’s personal pain. When the final shot faded out, I turned to my sister and said, “That is one of the best movies I’ve seen all year.”
The new concert documentary Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé — shot during her Renaissance World Tour, which ran from May to October — has different aims than Lemonade, or Bey’s later directorial work on Homecoming, Black Is King, and other projects. But it uses the same avant-garde, emotionally expressive editing logic that made that project so damn affecting.
Co-credited to Beyoncé and Lemonade producer Ed Burke, Renaissance is her most ambitious directorial project yet. At the same time, it’s a grounded behind-the-scenes story about the tangible logistics of a stadium tour. Early in the film, Bey and Burke show a series of shots where women on wires assemble her concert’s massive video screen on stage, panel by panel. Beyoncé explains that because the construction process takes so long, the Renaissance World Tour has three stages; while she’s performing on one of them, two others are being deconstructed or constructed at other tour stops.
To Beyoncé, the
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