Come for Beyoncé, stay for the spectacular artistry happening all around her. A concert documentary drawn from her two performances at 2018’s Coachella, Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (she’s credited as director, alongside her longtime video collaborator Ed Burke) draws on the homecoming traditions at historically black colleges and universities. And so the stage features a massive set of risers, on which some 200 drum-line performers, steppers, marching-band members, dancers, and others do their thing in sync with Beyoncé as she performs her hits at the center. It’s a literal pyramid of performance-art positivity. Adding to the visual texture is the fact that everyone on stage wore yellow one night and pink the next. By mixing the footage together in the final film, Beyoncé and her editors create a kaleidoscopic experience. In many ways, Homecoming doesn’t need the behind-the-scenes footage drawn from the preparations for Coachella. In voiceover, Beyoncé explicates what we’ve already witnessed, while also engaging in carefully cultivated self-mythologizing by way of candid-camera footage. The work on that stage—by every single person up there—more than speaks for itself.
