For more than 20 years, filmmakers have pursued Jeff Buckley's lightning-in-a-bottle story. Jeff Buckley, a talented and promising musician of his time, drowned in the Memphis River in May 1997 at the age of 30.
In 2000, Brad Pitt again courted Buckley's mother, Mary Gilbert, inviting her to lunch at his home in Los Feliz and including her in his wedding to Jennifer Aniston. on the guest list. It didn't take much before she allowed the actor to film a biopic about her son. Her son, a tortured singer-songwriter, is most widely recognized for his best performance of Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah.”
“If 20 people called you and Brad Pitt was one of them, who would you decide to meet?” Gilbert said interestingly.
However, Gilbert was skeptical of the concept of Pitt or any actor handling the role of her only child.
“We're going to dye your hair, put brown contacts on your depression, and then you open your mouth and Jeff's voice comes out?” she begged Pete.
Still, she and Pitt have stayed in touch about potential collaborations. In the years that followed, director Amy Berg, known for her documentaries West of Memphis and the Oscar-nominated Keep Us from Evil, first made her personal pitch. During Buckley's adventures, she seriously considered switching from nonfiction to narrative fiction. However, this also made Gilbert hesitate.
“I really didn’t feel safe being in a state where other people were learning on the job,” she said.
Fortunately, after Gilbert allowed her access to her son's archives, Berg simultaneously had an epiphany: Only a documentary could do Buckley justice. So Berg turned to the Pitt administration's production of “Jeff Buckley, This Is Not the End.” The documentary had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24.
“When I started listening to his voicemail messages, his DAP participants and presentations and studying his diaries, I just couldn't imagine that this was just a documentary,” Berg said. “And I just didn't know how to replicate Jeff in a scripting sense.”
Regardless, Barkley remains an enigma. He was born and raised in Orange County, California, the son of people and jazz great Tim Buckley. However, Buckley Sr. abandoned him before the child was born, so they only met once. Tim Buckley died of a heroin overdose in 1975 at the age of 28.
Like his father before him, Jeff Buckley died before reaching his full potential. He enjoyed a meteoric rise, falling in love with New York golf equipment like CBGB's before landing the big-money deal at Columbia Data. Yet Gilbert said her son had never accepted the fame and was shocked to be included in Personal Magazine's 50 cutest list. In the meantime, enjoy his only album, 1994's Grace, hailed by Bob Dylan and David Bowie as one of the greatest inventive achievements of all time The pressure of one—can sometimes be insurmountable. He grew disgusted with Columbia executives who pushed for the release of a second album before he was ready, forcing him to snap out of his psychosis.
“This Is Never the End” helps correct many misconceptions about Jeff Buckley while placing his creative achievements into context. Although his career was short-lived, it has not been forgotten. A whole new era for him and his original guitar to enjoy – an analog movie star in a digital world.
“One of the many great things about Jeff Buckley is that when you were looking to find him, you found him,” Berg said. “He's had a huge impact on TikTok and I was surprised to find out that he has more followers on the Jeff Buckley tag than even Bob Dylan. He's definitely carved out another second in pop culture history.”
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