Apologize if already posted, rushing.

[Edited 9/20/17 20:10pm]

Is Lady Gaga actually in her own documentary? Debatable. “It’s Stefani,” is how the singer introduces herself when she takes a phone call. She was born Stefani Germanotta, sure, before “Poker Face” and “Born This Way” and whatever Artpop was and whatever American Horror Story: Hotel was. The world knows her better by her stage name, but Gaga: Five Foot Two (available now on Netflix) finds its subject in a moment of transformation. The singer has a David Bowie tattoo on her side, the lightning-bolt face from Aladdin Sane. That was the album Bowie released after he “retired” his alter ego Ziggy Stardust. Are we watching something similar here? Is Gaga ending Gaga? “I don’t need to have a million wigs on to make a statement,” she says. “I can’t elevate it to a point where I become Lady Gaga again.” At one point, she tells her Creative Director that she wants a new look. “I think my uniform should be a black t-shirt, black jeans, and black boots.” Is this her real self? Do real selves consult their Creative Directors about uniforms?
Five Foot Two is a strange work, slippery, out of focus. It follows its subject through career high-lows, personal trials, Malibu banalities. She’s working on her latest album, Joanne, and preparing to play the Super Bowl. A relationship ends, distantly. It’s part of that odd and trendy new documentary genre: The Celebrity Trauma Hagiography, a sponsored celebration of a star’s splendid sadness. This isn’t a portrait of a famous person suffering trauma, mind you; the goal of a film like this is to portray the trauma of fame, forever up in the air, surrounded and alone.