DOC DELVES INTO SINGER’S COMPLEX LIFE
Film reminds fans of memorable performances
It’s easy to say that Whitney Houston was a force in the music world. But to truly know it you have to feel it, and Kevin Macdonald’s thorough documentary Whitney features two scenes that provide that visceral experience.
One of them is her singular performance of The Star-Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl in Florida. As the movie tells it, Houston had almost no rehearsal — she heard the arrangement just once, and recorded the track in one take. But the millions who heard her performance that January day wouldn’t soon forget it. It remains for many American fans her best work.
I’ll get to the other example in a moment.
In many ways, Whitney follows the standard path of the biographical doc. We learn about Houston’s relatives — her mother, Cissy Houston, was a successful gospel singer, and she counted Dionne Warwick among her cousins.
There are allegations of sexual abuse within the family that surface late in the film. And we hear about Houston’s good friend and (probably) lover, Robyn Crawford, though mostly from family members who didn’t care for her. Houston’s half-brother calls Crawford “a nobody ... evil.”
Macdonald is a little too fond of the time-capsule montage — yes, Houston found fame in the ’80s — but he also does a good job of reminding us of some of the singer’s groundbreaking work. Take her first step into acting, when she starred opposite Kevin Costner in a then-rare interracial romance, 1992’s The Bodyguard. Or her concert in Johannesburg in 1994, making her the first major singer to perform in postapartheid South Africa.
Of course, the issue of Houston’s drug use has to be addressed, though not everyone is willing. Former husband Bobby Brown (they divorced in 2007, five years before her death) flat out refuses to speak about it. And we see clips of her 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer, in which she admitted to drug use but suggested she could manage it. (Ironically, she also talked about her idea of a “perfect life” in 10 years’ time.)
There’s also a melancholy scene late in the film that finds Houston referencing “Nippy,” a
family nickname from when she was a child. In the manner of a psychic attempting to contact the other side, she talks about trying to talk to Nippy and being unable to reach her.
But let’s step back from the brink and look at that other heart-stopping musical moment. The occasion was Houston’s first televised appearance, on The Merv Griffin Show in 1983. Introduced as “simply breathtaking,” the 19-year-old steps to the microphone in a simple purple top and a black skirt, and begins to sing Home from the Broadway musical The Wiz.
Her voice is soft, uncertain, even halting in the opening line, “When I think of home ...” Then, ever so slowly, she builds in strength and volume and confidence until, four-and-ahalf minutes later, she ends with a triumphant crescendo, eyes closed, head thrown back, arms out.
You have to hear it to believe it. “We won’t forget that name,” says Griffin. “Whitney Houston!” How right he was.