2023 Movie
Dir. Lisa Cortés · United States of America · English
A stirring but ultimately plain documentary on a music icon who was anything but ordinary
Composed of archival footage of the titular musical legend and testimonials from those who worked with him or whose lives were profoundly impacted by his courage, Little Richard: I Am Everything feels comprehensive but is also oddly lacking. The documentary makes a bold, confident claim: that all popular music today can be directly traced to his work. And when the film lets itself get into full music nerd mode, it’s easy to be convinced. But after you accept that perspective on Little Richard, the rest of the movie seems like it’s just spinning its wheels, covering key moments in the artist’s life and career without really challenging or substantiating long-held ideas about him.
Chief among these is Little Richard’s shifting feelings toward his own queerness—proudly expressing his true self one year, then openly denouncing his own homosexuality the next. This subject matter is ripe for difficult but insightful analysis, which the film just never gets around to. It begins to feel like the believes there is no more discussion to be had about him. And that may very well be true; he deserves the flowers that were denied him for so long. But this attitude doesn’t necessarily make for the best documentary.
The story of the black, gay origins of rock n' roll. It explodes the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard's complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon's life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions.
"Richard’s amazing life is examined with rare objectivity and insight."
— David Jenkins
"We come away from Cortés’ documentary with a larger appreciation of Richard’s hits and his innovations (from his fashions to his musicality) — even if Richard the person remains obscured."
— Robert Daniels
An oral history of the Architect of Rock and Roll and his controversial, contradictory struggle between queerness and religion.
As much as I Am Everything seems to keep fast-forwarding through darker moments, its final tributes to Little Richard are still undeniably moving. People should still be allowed to feel however they feel about Little Richard and the self-loathing that would manifest into anti-gay rhetoric, but it's exactly this conflictedness that gives the film's concluding sections so much weight. In fact, this is a quality that the rest of the movie probably should've had to be truly worthy of its endlessly complicated subject. As we see him finally accept these awards in the late stages of his career, we do actually feel everything.
Between Sofia Coppola's new movie about Priscilla Presley and this film showing Little Richard besting all the other rock stars of his era, Team Elvis isn't doing too good right now.
Sundance
1 nom
Emil Hofileña is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. He also writes as a theater critic, with work published in Rogue and Out of Print, among others. He’s probably crying over a movie or an episode as we speak.
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