Doc’s take on Jeff Buckley hits many a high note
He was pop music’s James Dean, a flash of lightning that lit up the world for a nanosecond before falling victim to misadventure long before his time. At least Dean left us with three iconic movies to ensure immortality. Jeff Buckley didn’t even get the chance to release a second album, leaving us with nothing but the magnificent “Grace” to keep fans forever wondering what might have been.
So, it’s not surprising that director Amy Berg devotes more than half of her music doc, “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley,” to “Grace” and how the seemingly overnight success it yielded may have indirectly contributed to her subject’s drowning death in the summer of 1997. He’d just begun working on a follow-up to his smash 1994 debut, containing the now-iconic cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” when caught in an undertow while swimming fully clothed in Memphis’ Wolf River. Or, so the coroner determined.
It’s since become an urban legend that Buckley, like his famous folk-singer father, Tim, was under the influence when he passed. But toxicology begs to differ, indicating there were no drugs in his system and a minuscule amount of alcohol. The movie is emphatic in dousing such conspiracies, opting instead for a more conventional exploration of a troubled troubadour seeking to escape the long shadow of his famous father.
According to Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert, Jeff began his pursuit of becoming a “chanteuse” early – in the bassinet, singing along to Diana Ross’ “There Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” Mary was just a kid herself at the time, impregnated by future folk legend Tim Buckley, when they attended the same Anaheim high school. But Tim didn’t stick around for the birth. He wanted no part of fatherhood, Guibert says. And her parents wanted no part of her, either, after she refused to give Jeff up for adoption. So, she raised him on her own.
It was the beginning of a tight relationship that continued right up to his death. Guibert not only approved of her son’s pursuit of rock stardom, she encouraged it, even when his journey took him to New York City seeking to follow in the path of Bob Dylan, one in a long line of idols that included Nina Simone, Morrissey, Edith Piaf and Led Zeppelin. That golden, multi-octave voice soon got him noticed during his regular gig performing at the tiny East Village cafe, Sin-é. The A&R reps were falling over themselves to sign him before he opted to go where Dylan went, Columbia Records.
His girlfriend at the time, artist Rebecca Moore, says the contract was a mixed blessing. Buckley had gotten what he wished for, but suddenly, the pressure to deliver made him more introverted and driven. He moved out of their apartment so he could concentrate on writing material for what would become “Grace.” The results speak for themselves, but the strain to submit a worthy follow-up became too much. He tried to delay the inevitable by touring the world for months on end in support of “Grace.” It left an already fragile soul mentally and physically exhausted.
It also triggered a gradual downfall that Berg chronicles through the remembrances of Buckley’s bandmates, Michael Tighe and Parker Kindred, and the three most important women in his life, Guibert, Moore and Joan Wasser, a fellow musician and soulmate with whom he was with at the end. Their presence is a blessing and a hindrance because to coax their cooperation – and access the music rights – Berg had to, no doubt, make concessions. The personal details the array of talking heads provide are fascinating, like Buckley calling Moore “Butterfly,” and she dubbing him “Scratchy Fish” because of the friction from his facial stubble when they kissed. But when it comes time to discuss the circumstances of Buckley’s enigmatic death, you feel Berg holding back, glossing over the lingering speculation.
The punch-pulling brings her film within a whisker of hagiography, but it’s hard to complain considering the trove of voice messages, photos and video footage that make it a must for every Buckley fan. You may not get all the dirt, but you do come away with a solid understanding of a man with serious daddy issues. He only met his father once, just weeks before Tim died of an overdose in 1974. But it was enough to spark a lifelong resentment, leading Jeff to vow, “I’m not gonna end up like my father with a tag on my toe.” But, alas, he did.
That might be the saddest part of the story. Well, that and the heartbreak he left behind. But Moore saw it coming. “There were good and evil forces at play within him,” she says. It’s almost as eerie as Wesser recalling Jeff telling her, “I won’t be around much longer,” just days before he drowned. It’s insights like those that suggest his death, at age 30, was not an accident.
Even if it was, Jeff Buckley was not a well man. Like Janis, Jim and Jimi before him, he felt the strain of achieving too much too fast. You sense it in how Jeff’s friends and family describe his sudden change after the success of “Grace,” a recording no less than David Bowie dubbed “The greatest album ever made.” But it might have been his hero, Robert Plant, who sent Jeff over the edge when he told his protégé that he “was the greatest new singer in the world.” Tighe says Buckley went missing for two days after receiving that compliment. “It freaked Jeff out,” he says.
It was a far cry from the Jeff Buckley who was carefree and confident before fame came calling. That guy took the time to playfully create a 25-minute answering machine message in which he assumed the alter ego of Spinach the Cat. Compare that to a few months later when he told Wasser, “I don’t know how to be a man,” during a time when he was “dipping and dabbling in drugs.”
He sought refuge by moving with Wasser to Memphis in 1996, a city where he could become more anonymous. But fame was a monster he could not slay. Wasser says Buckley was increasingly anxious over a perceived loss of artistic freedom, as well as the money he owed Columbia in the wake of fruitless recording sessions. It’s a wonder he didn’t crack sooner. Was he a suicide? We’ll never know, but in reading between the lines, it sure seems possible. It’s a festering mystery that only makes the title “It’s Never Over” even more haunting.
Movie review
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley
Rated: Not rated
Featuring: Mary Guibert, Rebecca Moore, Joan Wasser, Aimee Mann, Ben Harper, Michael Tighe and Parker Kindred
Director: Amy Berg
Runtime: 108 minutes
Where: In theaters Aug. 8
Grade: B
