JunkDror

He was twisted and taunted, playful and poised, severed and safe–an anomaly of man birthed from waif.

Like a kiss of desire, not consolation, director Amy Berg presents the long overdue documentary of late musician, Jeff Buckley, with a visual identity and melodic synchronicity impressively representative of its soulful subject. No stranger to thematically religious feature films–like the award winning Deliver Us from Evil (2006) and highly rated Prophet’s Prey (2015)–her enlightening depiction of Buckley, in all his childlike wonder and adolescent mischief, leaves us with a tragic ending so pure it would echo across eternity. 

Born from classically trained mother Mary Guibert and famous folk singing father Tim Buckley, a young Jeffrey Scott Buckley would spend the majority of his early life cultivating a multi-octave voice, expansive instrumental range, and diverse musical taste in the shape of Led Zeppelin sing-alongs and high school jazz bands. Artist after artist, music from across the globe entered his home to possess the only vessel capable of such versatility. From discographies as rich as Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ensembles to dramatic renditions by chansonnier Edith Piaf, Jeff allowed their spirits to bury themselves in his own musical theatrics and guide his pursuit of life. Of course, having only met his absent, addict father once, Jeff credits none of his musical underpinnings to him. If anything, Tim Buckley gave his son a will to be a better man and an incessant group of fans he left behind. Still, Jeff became the only majesty to ever come from the drab and dreary Orange County, and another striking avant-garde to quiet the livened streets of New York City.

As the tales of starving artists go, Jeff lived in an ultra-humble apartment in the city, working all kinds of odd jobs to pay the bills: from pizza delivery to retail at Banana Republic. The in-between hours, like many extraordinaries before him, were spent in dingy, makeshift venues across East Village cafes playing experimental shows for crowds subjected to the establishment’s cheap entertainment for the night. The 1960s saw Bob Dylan at Gaslight Café, The Velvet Underground at Café Bizarre, and Jimi Hendrix at Cafe Wha. Fast-forward thirty years and with ghosts of greats-past, walks in another slim figured man to a shoebox of a coffeehouse, Sin-é. Here was always a modest audience, one reflective of pre-gentrified East Village communal hubs of young creatives. But the least unbeknownst thing about this hole-in-the-wall joint was Jeff Buckley and his Fender Telecaster. And so the buzz began.

His sound being rough and still fairly green, Jeff played a set mostly composed of covers but stepped onto Sin-é’s battered stage every night, under the spotlight of the moon, to give his all in a musical battle between emotion vs. technique. Nina Simone, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and others in punk, jazz, folk, rock, and soul made apparitions in his melodic interpretations and rigid sensibilities. While stylistically he was untraditional and indiscreet in tonal and instrumental fluctuations, his sweet spectacles left no room for error in a puritanical conformity to let the music be obnoxiously intense and shiveringly memorable. Successfully, he channeled a strange heavenliness most could not look past, and as the number of people who came to see him grew, so did the silence of the streets he overcrowded. 

Within two years of moving to the city that never sleeps, Jeff signed with Columbia Records and ran into the studio, where he spent another two years writing and recording his debut album, Grace. In total appreciation of musical genius, it was and still is recognized as one of the greatest records of all time for its orchestral crescendos, lyrical poeticism, and emotional depth. Themes of loss, love, anger, and depression flood each track with an orgasmic certainty that humanizes his personal narrative and, especially, validates his mysterious rise to stardom. From the titular track’s agonizing screams of fire to devotional confessions of despair in “So Real,” we receive an entrancing invocation to join in on his most intimate prayers. Paired with Berg’s psychedelic audiovisuals of glowing after-effects and grainy stills, the documentary becomes a truly immersive Jeff Buckley experience.

Though, the ultimate revelation of his soul-stirring character wouldn’t manifest until decades after his tragic death in 1997–only three years following the release of Grace. Truthfully, with no hits on American charts and the rising punk movement of the 90s, perhaps Jeff’s audacious sound never really stood a chance to live in the spotlight of his own time. Still, scattered accounts of his existence spawned through time from relatives, lovers, and friends he touched. Letters of affection, diary entries, private memos, heart-warming voicemails and live concert footage slowly personified an unfinished memory and granted an intimate explanation to the impassioned euphemisms of his music. Like sacred scripture, the archives expressed an endearing side to his fatherly foe and motherly woe, turmoil in life’s pursuit of love and greatness, and an empathy so feminine he must’ve been a misandrist lesbian in another life. 

Clearly, the puncturing nature of his music reached such beloved levels amongst his audience because of the emotionally attuned life he led beyond it. So much so, a new generation of fans has come together to honor a legacy with more mystery than friction. But with an incomplete discography and life half-lived, the permanence of his name risks perpetual doom and eternal ambiguity. Artful and precious as he was, a corporeal entity in close cahoots with the Heavens poses greater vulnerability to deals with the devil as well…Was Columbia Records’ quick, almost spontaneous, move to sign Jeff Buckley fresh off the Sin-é stage the beginning of the end? Was his natural intensity for life, love, music, and relationships a precursor to early salvation? Dutifully, how do you service a destiny not written to stay? 

For Jeff Buckley, answers always lay in music that grazed the gods and a knowingness that all flowers, in time, bend towards the sun.