Life Is But A Dream: Deleted Scenes
I clearly watched Beyonce’s “Life is But A Dream” film this weekend. It’s basically a 90 minute commercial for the Beyonce industry — which currently only includes albums and tours, but no doubt in the future will encompass fashion lines and lifestyle brands. It’s kind of embarrassing for HBO that they got bamboozled into running advertising for free — unless Beyonce did, in fact, pay them to air the “documentary.”
If you’d like to get to know the real Beyonce, you won’t learn anything new from the final cut of the film. The good news is that I was given access to some deleted clips* that provide a little more intel on Queen Bey, which I describe in detail below.
*Not!
1. In the opening scene, Beyonce says to the camera in regards to her life, “I feel so…fragile,” and immediately follows it with, “I feel so…hungry.” The end part is cut because according to her multi-million dollar deal with Pepsi, she can no longer acknowledge that she feels anything but satiated. Also, she’s been told by her handlers that she can fight childhood obesity if she herself stops eating.
2. Beyonce sits on a white couch, sans make-up, talking to an invisible person sitting behind the camera. A second camera pans out from the scene, and the person turns out to be Beyonce’s illegal Guatemalan housekeeper, who doesn’t speak English but is still a very good listener.
3. Beyonce is shown recording a song in the album. And damn, Beyonce can sing! Then the back track skips, and Beyonce says “shit.” She never acknowledges that she was lip synching her own documentary for the rest of the film, but does make growling motions with her face during scenes when she’s walking to and from her car, as if she’s telling her viewers, “I’m fierce, how dare you challenge my artistry.” On one occasion, a real joker screams out, “Beyonce, are you constipated?” He is instantly ripped to shreds by the Beyhive.
4. Beyonce says at a rehearsal for her MTV Video Awards appearance, “The funny thing about being a woman is that every month, we get our period, and it’s a blessing from Jesus.” Her entire crew starts clapping and screaming like she’s the fucking Simone de Beauvoir of hip hop. The camera pans to Oprah’s face. She was there all along, and she is hysterically crying.
5. There’s a brief interview with Lamar, the person hired to follow Beyonce around and tell her she’s great at everything. He’s a total queen. “You walk so fabulous, Beyonce,” he can be heard telling her off camera. “Girl, I can’t believe you read that newspaper!”
6. Solange, Beyonce’s sister, rolls her eyes.
7. “This is crazy!” a sleepy Beyonce, lying in bed, says to the camera, which records all of her waking hours. She’s talking about being pregnant. The second camera cuts to “Reality Check Steve,” the one person in the world who’s always honest with her. “It’s not really crazy at all, Beyonce,” Steve says. It’s never explained what he was doing in her hotel room late at night, but the implication is that he’s always near.
8. Beyonce auditions dancers for her “Girls” music video. A girl who refers to herself as “big-boned and proud” gets up on the stage, and does her thing. She’s easily 200 pounds. She’s also fantastic. “I don’t think you’re right for this,” says Beyonce at the end. She doesn’t speak herself — she relays the message through one of her handlers. “That’s cause you can’t handle this,” says the girl. Then she jiggles her hips. “Bitch, get your fat ass off the stage,” says Beyonce’s main gay. “You wanna come up her and take me off?” the girl screams. The camera cuts to an impossibly fit Beyonce dressed in a figure hugging bodysuit saying, “I just really want to empower women.”
9. Beyonce tries to call Jay-Z three times on the phone, and he doesn’t pick up. Her face falls.
10. Jay-Z is watching Beyonce get fitted into a skin tight leather minidress. “Yeah girl,” he says, and then he grabs her ass. It’s the only time he speaks without rapping the entire film.
11. Beyonce talks about how she learned that you can’t always be nice in business from her father, but doesn’t explain why she fired him as her manager. The camera accidentally cuts to an old video of him. He’s apoplectic and ripping off a back-up dancer’s weave for missing a step during a rehearsal for the VMAs.
12. Beyonce is caught in a tender moment alone with her daughter, Blue Ivy. The camera pans in close, and it’s clear from Beyonce’s expression that she’s not entirely sure who Blue Ivy is.
13. Beyonce is confronted with the difficult question, “Who was the first President of the United States?” Her face goes blank, and fourteen handlers fill the screen. Over their furious whispering, Beyonce can be heard weeping, “I didn’t learn that in home schooling.” “You’re the smartest person alive,” says Lamar. “Maybe instead of making another album, you should get your GRE,” says Reality Check Steve. The trauma of the moment is so severe for Beyonce that to convey it artistically, she has the screen go black for a full five minutes.
Unfortunately, I think this copy of the film has been deleted, but I’m happy to have been able to share it with you here. Happy Queen Bey watching.