Jeff Buckley in It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo credit: Merri Cyr. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
It’s hard to explain what it feels like to experience being introduced to a talented artist who is poised to become a legend in the future, but the popular culture of the time isn’t aware. That was the norm for people who were aware of Jeff Buckley’s music prior to his untimely death. To a lot of us, he was an enigmatic figure who came out of nowhere at a time when many of us were mourning the death of Kurt Cobain from afar. The melancholy and passion of his music was counterbalanced with visceral catharsis, along with highly poetic lyricism. To a listener, this combination allowed us to internalize his songs, and marvel at so many nuances of our cosmopolitan tastes being interwoven and executed with such skill and seemingly inexhaustible talent.
But only a few people actually knew him personally in a pre-social media world, much less knew anything about him and his background. It wasn’t until after his passing in 1997, through numerous high-profile efforts to eulogize and memorialize Jeff Buckley, that many of us learned anything about his background at all, or the company he kept. In the time since, many have made efforts to share their perspective on who he was to them, their kinship and influences, while others have done their best to keep what was deeply personal, and in some cases conflicting, from the public. Buckley made it fairly clear during his time in the media spotlight that he preferred a certain amount of anonymity and distance from his past. And yet, a talent of his stature would be revered by thousands, and eventually millions, who have no clue about his life outside of mystique and rumor.
The efforts to familiarize the public with who Jeff was, and why he should be celebrated has been nye relentless, through fan produced documentaries, biographies authorized by his estate, and attempts at biopics. These efforts, though inspired, were often missing the perspective of individuals key to creating a fair understanding of who Jeff Buckley the person was. Glaring omissions and exclusions might make some question the bias of a given work. Many a conversation I’ve had with artists are resigned to my memory because I care more about respecting their autonomy as a person when discussing deeply personal things. This is especially conflicting when the subject is something as complicated as a person’s life and death, and the highs and lows of their journey, and the wake of their passing as reconciled by those that survived them. But if you want to really learn about someone, their first-hand accounts, and the first-hand accounts of those closest to them, are essential for the work to pass muster. In this day and age, many of us can just follow the social media accounts of our favorite artists to cull perspective that they deemed worth sharing with the public. From that comes our current understanding of the concept of Parasocial Relationships.
My apprehension about creating Parasocial Relationships with public figures is a product of mourning many a musical inspiration in the ’90s. This compelling and masterfully crafted documentary’s subject, Jeff Buckley, is perhaps the most influential of those inspirations. He was not bashful about his apprehensions about being a public figure, but, for those of us far removed from the regions where his star first began to rise, the context for this apprehension, and even the apprehension itself, was a mystery. There’s little doubt remaining that the potential for some anonymity and normalcy was a contributing factor to his comfort with relocating from New York City to Memphis, Tennessee to work on his follow up to the one and only studio album he released in his lifetime, 1994’s Grace. It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley chronicles his sweeping, yet all too brief journey from coast to coast then the Midwest, and from here into the collective memory of generations to come.
Director Amy Berg had access to the keepsakes and mementos of those closest to Buckley throughout his life, as well as press and interviews that, to my knowledge, allow something previous documentaries about Buckley were not afforded: Jeff as narrator to his story. I couldn’t fault anyone for being taken aback by the insights uttered in his unmistakable voice, fearing that it was voiceover provided by someone bringing his written words to life. I wrestled with the suspension of disbelief, in part because I’d been spared the media that was cultivated from the press runs that accompanied Grace’s release and the ceaseless touring that accompanied it. Here we get first-hand accounts of what it felt like to be the focal point of all those cameras and pens from his, his peers’, and his loved ones’ perspectives. It’s not unflinching, but the intimacy of the revelations is haunting.
Interviews, archival footage, and various artifacts from his time on earth are intermingled to chronicle his parentage, his childhood, his adolescence, and his ascent, with a keen focus on his temperament and efforts to reconcile the unsolicited legacy he was born into, emotionally and artistically, as the son of famed singer-songwriter Tim Buckley. Where David Browne’s Buckley biography Dream Brother tells the story of Father and Son in tandem, It’s Never Over is faithful to Jeff’s way of relating to both his parents, in presence and absence. Life is a narrative told through our relationships, and It’s Never Over builds a foundation on this first relationship, parent and child, and we get to see how it contrasts with the relationships Jeff went on to have with his art, his collaborators, his patrons & benefactors, and, in particular, his romantic partners and friends.
Hearing Buckley’s voice beyond the refined catharsis of his meticulous lyricism, giving voice to his evolving feelings about his circumstances as his lot in life revealed itself, is balanced by steadying voices. His mother Mary Guibert, singer-songwriters Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, and guitarist Michael Tighe emerge as the most consistent and present subjects featured in the documentary, their own personal narratives being deeply interwoven with critical aspects of his own efforts to find comfort and companionship. With every additional familiar face and voice outside of those four individuals that appears in It’s Never Over comes gems and affirmations that reinforce their and our affinity for Jeff. I won’t spoil the surprises and revelations you may be witnesses to, but be they pleasant or heartening, they paint a respectful portrait of a multifaceted human being. These contributions, regardless of length or brevity, will strike a chord with fans who’ve spent the last three decades digesting a world that’s mourned and grieved Buckley’s loss publicly, as a who’s who of peers and predecessors sung Jeff’s praises unyieldingly. For those unfamiliar with Jeff Buckley as a musician or person, this may seem like an exhaustive introduction to the human being that he was, that so few of us really knew. But it isn’t.
It’s Never Over is an expertly curated introduction to certain aspects of a human being that was much more than a feature-length film could hope or would dare to capture. What it does succeed in is humanizing Jeff Buckley in a way he seemed incredibly determined to assert when he walked this earth. As someone who has apprehensions about the voyeuristic aspects of biographical art, I feel It’s Never Over is grounded in a way that creates appropriate emotional distance from its subject by focusing on the one universal aspect that viewers can relate to: the impact said subject had on the lives of the people who loved him dearly. The self-actualization and respect he publicly strove for, for himself and others, resonates in a way that made me look inward and immediately reevaluate key relationships I maintain in my own life. Rather than lament what was left undone in mourning and grief, I was inspired to reach out in the here and now. That is the power of compelling art. It encourages you to share the experience through empathy and camaraderie. How ironic that the subject of a biography can be both a well-defined person and an abstract idea? If that compels you, It’s Never Over is worth experiencing. If not, may all your promises be golden, and never broken. | Willie Edward Smith
