Lady Gaga and Netflix: A Documentary Goes Behind the Scenes

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“You have to go to that broken place of your heart to write songs,” Lady Gaga says early in “Gaga: Five Foot Two,” a documentary due Friday, Sept. 22, on Netflix. “It’s like open-heart surgery, making music. Every time it’s invasive.” The source of this particular affliction is “Joanne,” the 2016 album of soft-rock ballads that plunged her into a tailspin as she wondered if fans would accept her transformation from disco-pop provocateur into grief-driven chanteuse. The director, Chris Moukarbel, frames the story with scenes from Gaga’s February Super Bowl halftime performance, her studded boots dangling midair as she is hoisted to the stadium rafters. But it’s her cyclonic private life that fascinates as a multitude of producers, publicists, masseuses, doctors and makeup artists help manage her workday and the pain caused by a hip fracture in 2013. Still, being the woman born Stefani Germanotta can be deafening in its loneliness. “I go from everyone touching me all day, and talking at me all day,” she says, “to total silence.”

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