You might think of "The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace." Both Whitney and Robert Peace were phenomenally talented young black people from modest New Jersey circumstances; both were spotted by wealthy white men and sent off into the world (without adequate guidance); both were crushed very, very early in life. (Of course, Peace never had any of the stratospheric success Houston briefly had.)
-Houston came from Newark. She trained in gospel choirs. Drugs were OK; homosexuality was not. You can see the influence of Jesus in later songs: "If tomorrow is the Judgment Day...and I'm standing on the front lines..." "Heaven, hear me now. I look to you." I hadn't thought of this, but the "Kristina" in "Bobbi Kristina" seems possibly to be a reference to Christ. (Is the "Tina" a reference to "Tina Turner"--a figure Whitney liked to channel when she was alone with Mr. Brown? Who knows?) Video footage shows Whitney leading a group prayer before at least one performance. And Jesus came up in her on-stage banter. Watch the famous live clip of "All the Man that I Need," with the choir behind Whitney. Does that not feel like an extended moment in a really, unusually lively church? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmIp8j2cjDQ)
-Kevin Costner had the idea to make Whitney sing a cappella for the first sixty-ish seconds of "I Will Always Love You." The producer thought he was crazy. It seems important to know this.
-Whitney had more consecutive number-one hits than the Beatles. As of 2009, she was the most honored female musical act in history. She was made to "sound white" so that she could be the first "black pop princess"; there wouldn't be a Beyonce or a Mariah without her. She made melisma--the caressing of one word via thirty, forty, ten trillion notes--ubiquitous in pop music. At the Soul Train Awards, she was booed; her music was inadequate in the soul department, apparently. (Those early songs are utterly banal in their construction--the melodies, the words. But, also: Who cares? We're talking about Whitney Fucking Houston. She could take something as dull as "Happy Birthday" and make it chills-inducing; in fact, she did just that. Watch her do "Didn't We Almost Have It All" live in New York. It doesn't matter that the material she's given is not first-rate; she seems to cause actual paroxysms in the house. It's like seeing Julianne Moore do "Still Alice." We know the writing isn't top-of-the-line, but we're thrilled to see Moore simply slay everyone in her path. She makes vast flower gardens out of rocky soil. Did you guess that, when I saw the Whitney documentary at IFC, I was surrounded by hordes of other gay men? You guessed correctly.)
-"Whitney Houston died from a broken heart." The documentary suggests strongly that Whitney and Mr. Brown were very much in love. It was a problematic love--like the thing that Amy Winehouse had with her boy toy. ("Can I Be Me" seems to follow the template that "Amy" followed, though I'd argue "Amy" is better, in part because Amy Winehouse was a more interesting person. Whitney reminds me a bit of Princess Diana--plucked from a quiet home and forced into Good Girl roles she wasn't comfortable with. Of course, unlike Diana, Whitney Houston had once-in-a-generation talent.) Whitney met Mr. Brown on the same night she was booed at the Soul Train Awards; was there a subconscious plan to begin rebelling against the "Non-Challenging-to-White-Listeners" role that Clive Davis had foisted on her? Whitney kicked the back of Mr. Brown's chair; he looked at her, and she asked, "Did I do that?" And then she kicked his chair again. (You might think of Katy Perry spotting Russell Brand and playfully throwing a plastic bottle at his head. Also: Can we just agree here that pop-music documentaries are the best thing ever? "Whitney," "Amy," "Part of Me," "Never Say Never." All--literally all--of these movies have given me goosebumps and made me cry.)
-Janet Malcolm is better than any other writer at observing that all biographies are works of fiction. This was also a preoccupation of Virginia Woolf's. A life cannot find adequate representation in a two-hour work. We watch actual people on screen, and sometimes we forget that we're seeing characters; even when the people themselves are directly addressing the camera, they are *performing* a *version* of reality. So--it seems clear from "Whitney" and from "Amy" that the parents are turds. Cissy Houston? Winehouse's father? Unredeemable. But then, if you're at least half-awake, you yearn for the monstrous parents' side of the story. You want to try to understand what made Cissy such a shrew, and so apparently destructive. That movie doesn't exist yet.
-I would have preferred a movie that more fully celebrated Whitney's dazzling musical successes; just ninety minutes of concert footage would suffice. But it seems to me that Whitney's story could spawn several movies--the way Michael Jackson's did. One hopes.
-OK, I know I need to address Taylor Swift--and I imagine I will, soon. Look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you just made me DO. Look what YOU just made me do. I'll end with the NYS "Didn't We Almost" clip. There's a moment in "Manhattan" when Woody Allen lists reasons to be alive, and I think he talks about Mozart. Whatever. One of my top reasons to be alive is Whitney's voice. It does actually flood me with pleasure and cause my hair to stand on end--almost every time. A reason to be alive? The point around halfway when Whitney sings: "The ride with you, the ride was worth the fall. Cuz once you knoooow what luv is? You will never let.....it EEEEEEYYYYEYYYYEYYYYEYYYYYEEEEEEND! What a wondrous world! What a diva! Electricity zips through the body!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_4PlM85NJo
-Houston came from Newark. She trained in gospel choirs. Drugs were OK; homosexuality was not. You can see the influence of Jesus in later songs: "If tomorrow is the Judgment Day...and I'm standing on the front lines..." "Heaven, hear me now. I look to you." I hadn't thought of this, but the "Kristina" in "Bobbi Kristina" seems possibly to be a reference to Christ. (Is the "Tina" a reference to "Tina Turner"--a figure Whitney liked to channel when she was alone with Mr. Brown? Who knows?) Video footage shows Whitney leading a group prayer before at least one performance. And Jesus came up in her on-stage banter. Watch the famous live clip of "All the Man that I Need," with the choir behind Whitney. Does that not feel like an extended moment in a really, unusually lively church? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmIp8j2cjDQ)
-Kevin Costner had the idea to make Whitney sing a cappella for the first sixty-ish seconds of "I Will Always Love You." The producer thought he was crazy. It seems important to know this.
-Whitney had more consecutive number-one hits than the Beatles. As of 2009, she was the most honored female musical act in history. She was made to "sound white" so that she could be the first "black pop princess"; there wouldn't be a Beyonce or a Mariah without her. She made melisma--the caressing of one word via thirty, forty, ten trillion notes--ubiquitous in pop music. At the Soul Train Awards, she was booed; her music was inadequate in the soul department, apparently. (Those early songs are utterly banal in their construction--the melodies, the words. But, also: Who cares? We're talking about Whitney Fucking Houston. She could take something as dull as "Happy Birthday" and make it chills-inducing; in fact, she did just that. Watch her do "Didn't We Almost Have It All" live in New York. It doesn't matter that the material she's given is not first-rate; she seems to cause actual paroxysms in the house. It's like seeing Julianne Moore do "Still Alice." We know the writing isn't top-of-the-line, but we're thrilled to see Moore simply slay everyone in her path. She makes vast flower gardens out of rocky soil. Did you guess that, when I saw the Whitney documentary at IFC, I was surrounded by hordes of other gay men? You guessed correctly.)
-"Whitney Houston died from a broken heart." The documentary suggests strongly that Whitney and Mr. Brown were very much in love. It was a problematic love--like the thing that Amy Winehouse had with her boy toy. ("Can I Be Me" seems to follow the template that "Amy" followed, though I'd argue "Amy" is better, in part because Amy Winehouse was a more interesting person. Whitney reminds me a bit of Princess Diana--plucked from a quiet home and forced into Good Girl roles she wasn't comfortable with. Of course, unlike Diana, Whitney Houston had once-in-a-generation talent.) Whitney met Mr. Brown on the same night she was booed at the Soul Train Awards; was there a subconscious plan to begin rebelling against the "Non-Challenging-to-White-Listeners" role that Clive Davis had foisted on her? Whitney kicked the back of Mr. Brown's chair; he looked at her, and she asked, "Did I do that?" And then she kicked his chair again. (You might think of Katy Perry spotting Russell Brand and playfully throwing a plastic bottle at his head. Also: Can we just agree here that pop-music documentaries are the best thing ever? "Whitney," "Amy," "Part of Me," "Never Say Never." All--literally all--of these movies have given me goosebumps and made me cry.)
-Janet Malcolm is better than any other writer at observing that all biographies are works of fiction. This was also a preoccupation of Virginia Woolf's. A life cannot find adequate representation in a two-hour work. We watch actual people on screen, and sometimes we forget that we're seeing characters; even when the people themselves are directly addressing the camera, they are *performing* a *version* of reality. So--it seems clear from "Whitney" and from "Amy" that the parents are turds. Cissy Houston? Winehouse's father? Unredeemable. But then, if you're at least half-awake, you yearn for the monstrous parents' side of the story. You want to try to understand what made Cissy such a shrew, and so apparently destructive. That movie doesn't exist yet.
-I would have preferred a movie that more fully celebrated Whitney's dazzling musical successes; just ninety minutes of concert footage would suffice. But it seems to me that Whitney's story could spawn several movies--the way Michael Jackson's did. One hopes.
-OK, I know I need to address Taylor Swift--and I imagine I will, soon. Look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you just made me DO. Look what YOU just made me do. I'll end with the NYS "Didn't We Almost" clip. There's a moment in "Manhattan" when Woody Allen lists reasons to be alive, and I think he talks about Mozart. Whatever. One of my top reasons to be alive is Whitney's voice. It does actually flood me with pleasure and cause my hair to stand on end--almost every time. A reason to be alive? The point around halfway when Whitney sings: "The ride with you, the ride was worth the fall. Cuz once you knoooow what luv is? You will never let.....it EEEEEEYYYYEYYYYEYYYYEYYYYYEEEEEEND! What a wondrous world! What a diva! Electricity zips through the body!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_4PlM85NJo
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