“What? There’s no Doc Luther?” asked award-winning documentarian Dawn Porter when meeting with Sony Music to discuss which artists in their catalog deserved their own film. Anyone who knows R&B icon Luther Vandross would be just as surprised, as his music remains prevalent two decades after his death, and yet his personal life is forever shrouded in unanswered questions about his personal life “He’s the most famous singer many people don’t know. not,” said the director to IndieWire before the screening of her new film “Luther: Never Too Much” at the cinema. Virginia Film Festival 2024 where he won the Audience Award for Documentary.

Although Porter didn’t come to that meeting with Sony with an idea of ​​who she specifically wanted to make a film of, the director of acclaimed projects like “Trapped” “John Lewis: Good problemand “Stalemate: How America Shaped the Supreme Court” — all of which highlight the serious flaws in the American political system — knew she wanted to devote her time to something outside her comfort zone. “I had never made a music documentary before. I make a lot of political documentaries so I just wanted something a little different. You want to stretch and grow,” she said. “I’m always working on several different things at once, so I didn’t want to work on something too similar. The other project was a film about wrongful incarceration, so those can get heavy.

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After the death of Vandross and his immediate family, the first question was whether there would be enough resources to work with. The team that actually connected Porter to the field included Trish D. Chetty and Ged Doherty, principals of Colin Firth’s Raindog Films production company. “It was the producers who really got the family involved. They met with some of the Luther estate and worked on it for years to get it,” the filmmaker said. Turns out there was plenty of rehearsal footage, liner notes, and more to create a project worthy of the visual medium. “Then Jamie (Foxx) came on board after doing that. They were all in place before I arrived. Then, when I came on board, we finally launched. »

With such an increase documentaries featuring different key artists Recently, what made “Luther: Never Too Much” different from the rest of the group was, in part, a focus on the work that allowed Vandross to become such an admired figure among his peers. “Showing your intelligence was something important,” she said. “What I started to learn about him was that he was a composer, arranger and producer, that he produced Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin, that he sang for (David) Bowie and that he ended up arranging Bowie’s first American album. Everyone I talked to said he was a vocal genius. I thought that’s not how he’s portrayed. I think with a lot of black artists, we act like they just came out of their mother’s womb singing, and then it’s this natural God-given talent like there’s no work or no intention . For me, I wanted to focus on that part of his talent, that just because you’re black doesn’t mean you can sing.

To that end, Porter is making releasing footage of Vandross a priority. But getting to the point in “Luther: Never Too Much,” where the audience at the film’s Sundance premiere was ready to stand up and sing along, required some strategy. “I was very aware that not all, but many white audiences would not know him at all. Many black audiences would then have their favorite songs. As a filmmaker, you ask yourself, “How can I serve everyone?” The idea is in the first 35 minutes, we introduce you again. So by the time you get to “Never Too Much,” which is the third in the movie, everyone is caught up. Everyone says, ‘She’s just a really talented person,'” the director said. “Then people get into the movie and you see all these funny things. Then when you see him do the things he’s famous for, you know where they come from. The audience can appreciate the work, skill and intention behind what they do. They laugh happily when he goes, “Woo, woo, woo,” because they know he created that. Now they’re behind the scenes, and that’s really fun to do for a movie. I don’t really think of it as a profile, but more of an exploration of this artist at this time, in this period. What was he facing and what were the surprises? And then, why are we surprised?

Watching the film, it becomes apparent that there is an elephant in the room when it comes to the singer’s personal life. Although Vandross has been forced to speak publicly about his weight struggles, “Luther: Never Too Much” cleverly addresses the mystery of the singer’s sexuality and why those close to him are still hesitant to shed light on the subject.

“The way the media treated it was very important. They couldn’t put it in a box, so it was this heavy man singing about love, and they didn’t see any partners, and they didn’t know what to do with it. The questions she was asked about her weight were so intrusive. “How much do you weigh?” ” Like what?’ If you asked me today how much I weigh, I would say, “Fuck you.” What do you mean, how much do I weigh? We could have done a half hour of questions of people laughing at him to his face,” Porter said. “I kind of wanted to show what does fame do to people and how much do you have to sacrifice to achieve your dream of just being a performance artist?”

She added: “We’re not doing a good job of giving any space to famous people, and especially in our world of social media. What Luther said that really resonated with me was, “What I owe my fans is my talent, my best musical efforts, and I’m going to keep my personal life personal.” I actually think about it in terms of being pro-choice, being pro-choice, and what “My body, my self” means is my body. I don’t want you to comment on my body. I don’t want you to comment on my personal life. I expose myself in a particular way. I think it was an interesting exercise to see him try to draw that line without really straying from it. I thought, because we’re so proud and proud, and I’m like, “What if someone shuts up?” That doesn’t mean they hate each other, it just means they’re quiet.’ »

Although we’re in an age where audiences want definitive answers to their stars’ invasive questions, the approach Porter took to depicting Vandross’ personal life appears to have paid off. “That’s definitely the thing that worried me the most, because you have to be real, but you also have to respect your character,” she said. “The audience responded very well to ‘Let him do what he wants to do.'”

Yet perhaps the most difficult aspect of the film is that Vandross died before he could see how ready and willing his fans were to embrace him for all that he was. “I’m so curious, I’m like, ‘Who would be the mentor?’ How would his music have evolved? What would he do now? asked Porter. “He certainly knew how many fans he had. Some of the biggest names in music have made it clear how much he is admired. Foxx, for example, who is both the film’s producer and one of the most entertaining talking heads in a documentary in recent memory, joined the project because, in the director’s eyes, “he really understood what it looks like as an artist who tries not to let himself be pigeonholed and to do different things.

Ultimately, “for me, the story of Luther was that he was everywhere, and he was in so many places that we didn’t recognize or understand that he was everywhere. He was largely popular with black audiences, but he was everywhere. He was on ‘Sesame Street,’ he was in all your favorite commercials and he was the backup singer for all those singers,” Porter said. “He was talented enough to have it all. He had to work very hard to be truly appreciated for what he did. I hope this film will do even more to achieve that.

“Luther: Never Too Much” is in select theaters now and will premiere on CNN on January 1, 2025 at 8 p.m. ET.

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