[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Later this hour, we'll speak with a composer known as Helmut Vonlichten, whose music you've heard, if you watch professional sports. We're going to talk about sports music composition. Let's kick this hour off with the co-directors of the new film Love to Love You: Donna Summer.

[music- Donna Summer: Love to Love You Baby]

Alison Stewart: Impossible to sit still. Everybody who's in the studio is chair dancing right now. That was Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby, her first US hit single after finding success in Europe. Love to Love You: Donna Summer is also the title of a new film that provides a candid look at the artist's life and career. Summer recorded 17 Studio albums throughout her lifetime and three consecutive number one platinum double albums, the only artist to do so. She won six American Music Awards, five Grammys, and was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.

That's the public persona. The film unveils the woman behind the glittering dresses and big hair, a product of segregated Boston who went to Germany to find an audience before returning to the States. We see her struggle to reconcile her religious beliefs with the media narrative around her sexuality. There were romantic and business relationships that tested her, as did her ambition as an artist and as a mother.

The documentary also features interviews with Summer's three daughters, Mimi Sommer and Amanda, and Brooklyn Sudano, and their dad, Bruce Sudano. A Variety review said it's full of home movies and photographs and archival footage of Donna Summer, and it creates an eye-opening portrait of the ambitious, vivacious yet troubled woman she was. Love to Love You: Donna Summer premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year and streams on HBO Max starting this Saturday, May 20th. Joining us in studio is co-director Roger Ross Williams. You know him from his 2019 documentary, The Apollo, and the biopic, Cassandro, coming to Amazon Prime soon. Welcome back.

Roger Ross Williams: Yes, it's great to be back, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Also joining us is Brooklyn Sudano. Am I saying that right?

Brooklyn Sudano: Sudano.

Alison Stewart: Sudano. Thank you. She has co-directed the film and one of Donna Summer's daughters. Nice to meet you.

Brooklyn Sudano: Nice to meet you too.

Alison Stewart: Brooklyn, to the world, she's the queen of disco, to you, she is mom. When did you decide that it really was going to be okay with you and with your family to take all this really personal? There's home movies, there's phone calls, there's very candid photos, very candid moments. When did you all decide, "Okay, we want to share this with the world"?

Brooklyn Sudano: It was probably about seven years ago, to be honest. I had recently become a mother, grappling with that new role and not having my mom. I was processing that whole dynamic as well as I would have people and fans come up to me all the time and say, "Hey, this song," or, "Your mom shared this moment with me. It was so impactful to my life." I went to my father and we just really felt there was so much that people didn't really know or understand about her, or only knew a fraction of what her artistry and contribution was. I just started, I started talking to people and gathering information, and doing some research, and thankfully, Roger and I got introduced, and it was like a match made in heaven, literally.

Roger Ross Williams: It was.

[laughter]

Brooklyn Sudano: We were able to really lean on those things because we felt like that was really going to lend itself to a portrait of her that would not be available to anybody else, that we were able to provide a look into her life in a way that only the family could.

Alison Stewart: It felt like the memoir she didn't get to write-

Brooklyn Sudano: Exactly.

Alison Stewart: -as I was watching it. When you realized you had all of this material, Roger, you clearly made the decision to use Donna's voice, to use her voice to tell her story, what's a moment in the film when you knew you wanted to make sure Donna told that story?

Roger Ross Williams: I think that we made that decision pretty much from the beginning. Donna had written a autobiography, but it wasn't full of a lot of truth, there was some mixed truth.

Brooklyn Sudano: It was just watered down.

Roger Ross Williams: Let's say watered down, that's a good way to say it, and so-

Brooklyn Sudano: Heavily edited.

Roger Ross Williams: -heavily edited, but we had those recordings from the guy who wrote the book. Those recordings were a lot more candid. They didn't put everything in the book that she talked about. We were like, "This is the way to tell this story," because so many of these films are told from a place where they're promotional. We didn't want to make that kind of a film. We wanted to really delve deep into some truth and honesty and some very tough things. That was pretty much from the beginning.

Brooklyn Sudano: Yes, exactly. I think it was really important to me and to Roger to be honest. Thankfully, my family also felt that way, that the truth will set you free. It sounds corny, but it really is true. I think the power of that is really seen in the film, and it's really resonated with the people that have seen it so far. I don't think we would have been successful if we had done it any other way.

Alison Stewart: Yes, the film gets into sexual assault, homophobia, an attempted suicide. Brooklyn, did you ever have a moment when you felt protective during the process?

Brooklyn Sudano: Honestly, no, because what I felt that the material, and my mother would speak for herself. I think in the totality of the film, you get a real sense of who she was and what her contribution was. Again, it crystallizes what is the truth, what is the most honest take that we can take with whatever those elements were. That's where the power lies, so that's what we chose to do.

Alison Stewart: Roger, what was a tough call moment?

Roger Ross Williams: Oh, there were a lot of tough call moments. Donna Summer was a true artist, and all artists are complicated and complex. Dealing with her own attempted suicide, dealing with when she was beaten by her ex-boyfriend Peter, a tough moment was talking to Peter about it, who actually talks about it in the film. I think Brooklyn gave Peter permission to really, really get it off of his chest and admit that he had hit Donna, and that was a really difficult-- we were very nervous about that. There were a lot of tears and emotion that came out of that on all sides, so that was a pretty tough moment.

Brooklyn Sudano: There's so much to my mother's story, you can't include everything. I think it was one of those things where you have to really pick the elements that are going to create a through line, that are going to be the most impactful and most representative. There was a lot that got left on the cutting room floor, whether certain songs. We were just speaking about Winter Melody, there was a beautiful beat using the song Winter Melody that we weren't able to include. It was tricky. It took a little bit of time to really figure out the structure to make it compelling without feeling like a Wikipedia page.

Roger Ross Williams: I think it was important that this felt deeply personal. For me, it was like it has to feel like a giant home movie. It has to feel like you are so inside the head of this incredible artist, that you're experiencing her the way her family, the way her friends experience her, so that's why we leaned into all of the home movies. A lot of the video was shot by Donna herself. She's the only cinematographer. She got a camera in 1977, and she filmed and created these sketches, and she was funny and raunchy. Some of the raunchy stuff we couldn't actually put in the film, but it was so great [unintelligible 00:08:21]

Alison Stewart: The name of the film is Love to Love You: Donna Summer. It will be on HBO Max this Saturday. I'm speaking with its co-directors Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano. Let's do a little bit of biography because I think the biography is interesting, and you think about time and place, when she grew up, or New Year's Eve 1948, LaDonna Adrian Gaines--

Brooklyn Sudano: I'm going to correct you. For the record, this is a big misconception that her name is LaDonna. This was actually one of my big things, was to go get her birth certificate. Her birth name is Donna Adrian Gaines, the LaDonna is inaccurate. It was a nickname, but it's actually not her birth name.

Alison Stewart: So her birth name is Donna.

Brooklyn Sudano: She even wrote it wrong in her own book. I was like-- I swear to you-

Roger Ross Williams: You got that from her own book.

Brooklyn Sudano: It was a name that her father wanted to name her but was not actually her given name, so you are the first to know.

Alison Stewart: That's so interesting.

Roger Ross Williams: A lot of secrets there.

Alison Stewart: Let's chew on that for a minute.

Brooklyn Sudano: It is very indicative of, I feel like, my mother and her story, that there's always something not fully understood about her, and there's a mystery about her that is compelling, I feel.

Roger Ross Williams: That's why Brooklyn wanted to make this film, is to really understand her mother and dive deep into all those mysterious parts of her.

Alison Stewart: What part of being from Boston in the '50s and '60s do we see track through her adulthood?

Brooklyn Sudano: I think she never forgot where she came from. I think she was very aware her roots and her family, whether it's the church, what that spirituality and that faith that grounded her, the idea of family and what that meant. She brought her family along with her to perform with her, her sisters, my auntie Mary, my auntie Dara, performed with her for many, many years. She didn't forget where she came from.

She brought where she came from with her along the way, and that was what I think really grounded her in those moments when she felt far away, but Boston is a complicated city, as you pointed out earlier. I do think that there was an idea that, "I need to escape this. If I'm going to be who I feel like I'm supposed to be, I've got to get out of here." I think that helped push her to take some big risks.

Alison Stewart: Yes. There's this one moment when she's talking about in the film, or it is talked about, that as a kid, they're running away from some white kids back to their side of Boston, and she runs into a fence and she had a scar on her-- and you can see it in some pictures. She had a scar on her chin-

Brooklyn Sudano: For her whole life.

Alison Stewart: Her face, she got caught on the fence. What conversations did you have with your mom about race? Just raising a brown-skinned girl.

Brooklyn Sudano: No, and I'm biracial, so we would often talk about nationality and race as just a part of who we were. She taught us to honor both sides and that we were all-- because as children, fans of all races, nationalities, people from everywhere would come up to us. I think very early on, we really saw the world as very big and large, and that people were people, and that people were to be respected and cared for and loved. Really, that was who she was innately, and that's what she taught us to be.

Roger Ross Williams: What really interests me is that in 1968 when America was in the midst of incredible racial strife, Donna left and went to Germany. A lot of African Americans did, where they felt freer. They could express themselves artistically. That's a really interesting part of the story. I think if she hadn't left, she wouldn't have had the freedom to become Donna Summer to create Love to Love You, and to be the superstar that she is.

Brooklyn Sudano: She never thought she was going to leave Europe. I think it really took something like the magnitude of Love to Love You to bring her back to the states because she loved living in Europe so, so much. She felt a certain creative freedom, a certain liberty to just be who she wanted to be. She was in hair. She was really a hippie and part of this artist community there. She really felt like she could be herself there.

Alison Stewart: My guests are Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano. They are the co-directors of Love to Love You: Donna Summer, the new film. It'll be on HBO Max this weekend. This really caught me, is how much of a songwriter she was and how much of an artist she was. I'm not sure I really fully understood that about Donna Summer. What was unique about the way she wrote songs? What do you think, Brooklyn?

Brooklyn Sudano: I think her creativity, I would just say speak generally. Her artistry was not separated from her everyday life. Everything was creative. Anything could serve as inspiration. If you look at, say She Works Hard For The Money. She's going to the bathroom after the Grammys, at a restaurant bathroom and she sees this woman in the corner just slumped over and she just, "Oh, man, she looks like she works hard for her money." That right there spurred on a massive female empowerment song. She was ready for the spark of inspiration at any moment.

Roger Ross Williams: She couldn't be put in the box of just a disco star. She was the first woman to win female rock vocals, Grammy, that's a huge deal, especially for a Black woman. The first Black woman on MTV. She was always breaking out of the box and really stretching [unintelligible 00:14:22] She didn't want to be in the box of this disco. We all love disco. It's the reason why I'm a huge Donna Summer fan, but she could do so much more and she could be so much more.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a clip from the film, Love to Love You: Donna Summer. It's an interesting story about how she came up with the melody for I Feel Love. Let's listen to the clip. It is about her creative process and figuring out how her voice was best suited for and the song. Let's take a listen. We can talk about it on the other side.

Donna Summer: It's so funny how people write, and a lot of writers write better under severe pressure, like it's got to be finished yesterday kind of pressure. I prefer to work in the way of concepts, have an idea and work it out to the end. Coming from being the Disco Queen to, where am I now? What is my voice best suited for? You just have to try a lot of things until you find the right thing.

You have to keep going. I'm not a person who has to sound like me. I don't care if people know it's me, in some way. I don't care if they go, "Oh, that's Donna Summer. I almost don't want them to, I want them to be surprised. That's Donna Summer. Wow, man, she sounds totally different." I think that is using your voice as an instrument.

Alison Stewart: One I love that she says idea, you can hear the Boston still [unintelligible 00:15:43]

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: What was her relationship with celebrity and fame?

Brooklyn Sudano: I think she understood that there was a responsibility that came with it and she didn't always love it, but she understood her role in that for people. I think she was very giving to the people she came across and her fans, she loved her fans dearly, dearly, always made time for them. I think she understood the responsibility of it. However, when you are, what Roger said earlier, put into a box, I think that's the part that she struggled with. Not the people so much, but more the box she was continuously put in to say, you have to be this, and not being able to expand into these other facets of herself and her creativity.

I think that was really the challenge. I think the pace. When I think about 1975 to 1980, the amount of music she produced and wrote and sang, the tours, the press, all the different things, I'm in awe of how she was able to survive that.

Alison Stewart: In the documentary, as you said, you have to cover all topics. People know this, that there was a moment in her life, in her career, in her faith, when she spoke, she had controversial remarks about the LGBTQIA community, a community that had really supported her, especially during disco. How did you know you wanted to approach this? You knew you had to include it in the documentary. What was your thought about how to approach this?

Roger Ross Williams: I'm a huge Donna Summer fan, so when that happened, I was disappointed. I'm a gay man. I was disappointed. It's why I wanted to make the documentary, because I wanted to explore this artist that I love and really dive into why that happened and where those remarks came from. I think the film answers that because when you understand who she is, her background from growing up in the church, I grew up in the church. My father's a minister. I sang in the choir, I know the push and pull of the church, especially the Black church.

I wanted to understand that, and I think you understand why that happened and her deep regret that that happened, that she said that. She, as Bruce says, overcorrected and that she made those comments and then she regretted it for the rest of her life.

Alison Stewart: I think we all sometimes put our foot in our mouth without understanding how that's going to land. I think that that off-the-cuff comment on stage, the heart of who she was, was not what that comment represented. I think that was the part that tore her up about it, because she had to live with people thinking, "Oh, they must think that I don't like them or I don't love them, and I love them." That was really hard. I think, again, in the film, my father says like, "They didn't handle it appropriately. They didn't handle it quickly enough."

I think it then spiraled and there was a lot of other things that were put upon her and said that she said that she didn't, but it was hard for her to be able to make that ground back. I think it was really important for us to include it in the film, to acknowledge the hurt that happened, but also say we understand that and we hope that there can be healing from it. I think this film is a lot about healing, and having tough conversations, and this beat is one part of that.

Brooklyn Sudano: Did you want to add anything?

Roger Ross Williams: No, I just wanted to say that during that time, you have to realize the time when those comments were made, it was the middle of the AIDS crisis. We were dying in droves and there was an incredible sensitivity. It was amplified by that. We put that in the film that put it in context of when that comment, saying Adam and Steve, God didn't make Adam and Eve, God made Adam and Steve. It just stung deeply from an artist we loved in a time when we were losing our loved ones all around us as gay people.

Alison Stewart: What do you understand about your mother as a woman now?

Brooklyn Sudano: I understand that she was the strongest. I think that having her as an example, I'm a mother. I have two children, and to understand the sacrifice, the sense of responsibility to your family, but also to your dream and to your calling, and that sometimes those things are at odds with each other, and there are hard choice and sacrifices that you have to make, but she was an incredibly strong, talented, gracious person. I feel very blessed to have had her as my example.

Alison Stewart: The name of the film is Love to Love You: Donna Summer. You can watch it this weekend on HBO Max. My guests have been co-directors, Brooklyn Sudano and Roger Ross Williams. Thank you for coming to the studio.

Roger Ross Williams: Thank you.

Brooklyn Sudano: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Roger Ross Williams: Great to be here.

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