This documentary is to other documentaries on the life of Whitney Huston what Whitney's performance of the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the 1991 Super Bowl is to all the other performances - simply unsurpassed.
In interviews, filmmaker Kevin Macdonald told how he was reluctant to make the film when first approached, feeling that Whitney had become a tabloid victim with not much left to tell. He admitted he was wrong when he discovered the amazing amount of love and affection there was for her when he met people who had known her. Then he became intrigued with her story and what happened to her. He approached the spectacular, but relatively short life of Whitney Huston as an investigation into a mystery.
The result is this extraordinary film.
"Whitney" is so absorbing you have to force yourself to step back and admire the actual technique that makes it so brilliant. Whitney's story is told through carefully chosen clips and images, but especially through the voices of the people who knew her intimately: her mother; her brothers; her ex-husband; friends; colleagues; an amazing collection of the key people in her life. Her story unfolds in chronological order; from Whitney as a child through to the dazzling career followed by the decline and inevitable end.
There are revelations, some shocking. The interviewees opened up to Macdonald with amazing candor telling of betrayals and unexpected dark experiences in Whitney's past. Names are named and Macdonald said he was conflicted whether to put them in the final cut, but as the "Me Too Movement" had paved the way, they were included. These disturbing insights go some way to explaining the self-destructive tendency in a woman described by nearly all as uncomplicated and fun-loving, who also seemed to have everything: luminous beauty, style and grace, and a voice so glorious that her mother called it "a gift".
There are sequences in "Whitney" where it is difficult not to have tears in your eyes.
This film lives up to all the superlatives.
In interviews, filmmaker Kevin Macdonald told how he was reluctant to make the film when first approached, feeling that Whitney had become a tabloid victim with not much left to tell. He admitted he was wrong when he discovered the amazing amount of love and affection there was for her when he met people who had known her. Then he became intrigued with her story and what happened to her. He approached the spectacular, but relatively short life of Whitney Huston as an investigation into a mystery.
The result is this extraordinary film.
"Whitney" is so absorbing you have to force yourself to step back and admire the actual technique that makes it so brilliant. Whitney's story is told through carefully chosen clips and images, but especially through the voices of the people who knew her intimately: her mother; her brothers; her ex-husband; friends; colleagues; an amazing collection of the key people in her life. Her story unfolds in chronological order; from Whitney as a child through to the dazzling career followed by the decline and inevitable end.
There are revelations, some shocking. The interviewees opened up to Macdonald with amazing candor telling of betrayals and unexpected dark experiences in Whitney's past. Names are named and Macdonald said he was conflicted whether to put them in the final cut, but as the "Me Too Movement" had paved the way, they were included. These disturbing insights go some way to explaining the self-destructive tendency in a woman described by nearly all as uncomplicated and fun-loving, who also seemed to have everything: luminous beauty, style and grace, and a voice so glorious that her mother called it "a gift".
There are sequences in "Whitney" where it is difficult not to have tears in your eyes.
This film lives up to all the superlatives.