Amy Berg’s new documentary It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is off to a hot start at the box office, earning $400,000 in its opening weekend of limited release. That’s a testament to Berg’s filmmaking skill and to the legions of devoted Jeff Buckley fans, who feel passionately about the singer-songwriter’s music almost 30 years after his untimely passing.
Berg joins the latest edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to share when she first heard music by the singer-songwriter-guitarist and her long journey to making the film. The director interviewed the key women in Buckley’s life including his mother, Mary Guibert, who had Jeff when she was just 17 years old, and Buckley’s former romantic partners, Rebecca Moore and musician Joan Wasser. Moore had never spoken publicly before about her intense relationship with Buckley.
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Berg also discusses how Buckley’s musical style – ethereal and poetic – contrasted with the Seattle sound of Nirvana and Pearl Jam ascendant in the 1990s. He also struggled to step out of his father’s shadow – gifted singer-songwriter Tim Buckley – a psychic challenge made more acute by the fact that Jeff grew up without his father in his life (they met only once).
In the episode, we also get into why Buckley’s record label initially rejected the photo he chose for the album cover for Grace, his one studio recording. It had to do with Buckley’s choice of attire – a sequined blazer.
Buckley died of an accidental drowning in 1997. He is more popular now than at any time he was alive; in fact, his iconic cover of the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah” is streamed on Spotify an average of 115,000 times a day, amassing a total of more than 400 million streams on the platform as of a few days ago. It was through that incredible vocal performance that Doc Talk co-host John Ridley first became aware of Buckley’s talent. He says of Berg’s film, “It’s stunning, it’s emotional, and it’s really deep.”
That’s on the new edition of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
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