The Revealing Spectacle of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance”

For the past decade, Beyoncé has been using documentary film to craft a narrative about herself in the absence of traditional press interviews and public appearances. Her films, which include “Life Is But a Dream” (2013) and “Homecoming” (2019), attempt to show audiences just how much labor is involved in the extraordinary job of being Beyoncé. In “Homecoming,” the Netflix documentary she released to supplement her historically ambitious 2018 Coachella performance, the brunt of the work on show was physical.