In the 29 years since his accidental death from drowning, the life of Jeff Buckley has been simplified into rock ‘n’ roll myth: a tragic, sensitive artist fated to die young like his cult musician father. Amy J. Berg’s film – the first feature documentary on Buckley – aims to explode this myth. Using interviews with friends and collaborators alongside a rich cache of archival footage, Berg showcases Buckley’s complex personality, and goes some way to argue for his music as radical and experimental.
We meet Buckley as a child being raised by his mother in Southern California, already abandoned by his father, the folk musician Tim Buckley, who died of an overdose when Buckley was eight years old. After spending his teenage years in bands, Buckley is invited to perform at a 1991 tribute to his father in New York. Although reluctant to be associated with Tim (“he decided not to be a father to me”) this performance introduces him to an avant-garde scene in which his artistry blossoms; a context which is often overlooked.
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As well his legendary performances at New York’s Sin‑é club – where he is scouted by Columbia Records – he gets involved in underground theatre with his girlfriend, Rebecca Moore. Moore and another former partner, musician Joan Wasser, are the most valuable voices in the film, painting a picture of a man both complex and alluring – Wasser’s description of Buckley locking gazes with her when seeing her perform for the first time is devastatingly sexy. Berg foregrounds the feminine in Buckley’s story, positioning him alongside the gender-playful likes of Michael Stipe and Kurt Cobain. She emphasises the influence of Nina Simone on his voice, includes stories of him wearing dresses at home, and charts a struggle with his record company when he wears a gold jacket on the cover of his 1994 album ‘Grace’ – too androgynous, apparently.
Much time is given to ‘Grace’, Buckley’s only complete studio album, with some gorgeous footage of its recording. It’s refreshing to see the album reframed as radical – speaking about his now-ubiquitous cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, Buckley (correctly) states that “it’s a homage to the orgasm, not god.” At the time of his death in 1997, Buckley was working on his second album, ‘My Sweetheart The Drunk’, released posthumously as a series of full band recordings and home-made demos. This was some of Buckley’s best, strangest music, and although much of it is used throughout the film, we’re barely told about the making of it, and are somewhat misled about how it was recorded. This is a missed opportunity in a film that is often successful in widening the scope of Buckley’s story.
Instead, the end of the film is given over to discussion of Buckley’s mental health, specifically his suspected bipolar disorder, which worsened with the pressures of fame. According to Wasser, his brain was “a radio tuned to all frequencies at once” – a sometimes fruitful, sometimes painful state which is sensitively mirrored by Berg’s collage-like filmmaking. Berg clearly understands her subject well, but perhaps Buckley is too complex a figure to be fully represented in just one film.