Written by Alexa LoSchiavo. Graphic by Avery Melhado.
The screening for Jeff Buckley had lines wrapping around the theater, full of eager young art students excited to see their favorite artist’s life laid out in front of them, and this documentary did not disappoint. As the age of the 90s gets further away, more and more Gen Z’ers want to replicate it, sporting baggy jeans and oversized sweatshirts, listening to Nirvana and Radiohead, Soundgarden and Jeff Buckley. Jeff Buckley’s music has stayed alive through its powerful and gripping lyrics, resounding melodies, but also through the resurgence of young 20-somethings listening to older music. While we enjoy the music, most average listeners don’t know the story of Jeff Buckley and this documentary holds our hands as we travel through his life.
Amy Berg’s documentary, “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley”, is a brilliantly edited and highly personal look into the life and work of the singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley. Berg pieces together the story of his life, building on research that has been in the works since 2007. She beautifully weaves stories of loved ones about Jeff in with his own voice, ebbing and flowing between the people he left behind and the remnants we still have of him.
This testament of research and dedication to Jeff Buckley’s life in the form of Berg’s deeply personal and thorough documentary all started with a voicemail. Berg says that the last voicemail Jeff sent to his mom was her “north star” in making this documentary. It all came back to letting his voice come through, revealing his story in a painstakingly honest way.
As we walk through his life, we are propelled forward by his sprawling script, journal entries, and reanimated doodles, moving us through time as we hear all the people whose lives he touched. We meet Mary Guibert, Jeff Buckley’s mother, whom Berg spends many, many years trying to convince to tell this story. Now that she’s finally ready, it all pours out. We hear from his first love, Rebecca Moore, the girl he wrote “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” about. We hear from his bandmates about his days on tour. We hear from Joan Wasser, a musician and Jeff’s second love. The stories come out with such narrative detail and beautiful softness that it feels like we’re in the room with them.
We all know Jeff Buckley from his raw, yearning voice and powerful sound, but this documentary and the people he touched give us a new side of Jeff, one that reveals how powerful his legacy is. We travel with Jeff through his life in this movie, seeing the time he climbed up scaffolding at a festival in France, to feel the vibrations of his all-time favorite band, Led Zeppelin. We see his old apartment, places he went to in the city, we feel how he felt when he first met Rebecca and how he felt when he was on the road. This documentary, through its many beautiful new truths about Jeff, has the most poignant takeaway: how much his legacy lives on. If Jeff were still alive today, he would be just 59 years old. As we travel with him, we see how tragic his death was and all the remnants of him that are still breathing. His apartment is still standing. The old house he rented in Memphis was painted blue. We see the people who keep his memory alive, not only him as a musician but him as a person, the raw, real sides of him growing up, and him connecting with others.
This documentary shows not only the tragedy of Jeff Buckley’s death but also all the people who live on remembering him for the simple things he did in his life. He says in the documentary that “without ordinary life, there is no art,” and in this documentary, we get to see all the ordinary and remarkable parts of his life. His story is one to cherish and remember, not only for his music but for the tangible way he touched others’ lives. His legacy lives on, in his music, in the people who love him and in this powerfully honest and beautifully vulnerable documentary.
Alexa is a junior majoring in Writing and hopes to pursue a career in publishing. Outside of writing for District, she can be found writing almost anything, reading in the park, or performing at an open mic!
