Synopsis
The life and tragic death of Whitney Houston.
2017 Directed by Nick Broomfield, Rudi Dolezal
The life and tragic death of Whitney Houston.
휘트니 휴스턴 : 그냥 나로 살고자, ויטני יוסטון: להיות מי שאני, Whitney Houston - Una voce dal cielo, Whitney, Whitney : Can I Be Me, Whitney: Ben Olabilir miyim, Whitney: Být sama sebou, וויטני יוסטון: להיות מי שאני, ホイットニー:本当の自分でいさせて, 惠特尼:可以做我自己吗, Whitney Houston
For a film that asks, in Houston's own words, "Can I be me?", it strikes me as sad that it paints Houston so much as a victim. Her death is truly tragic, and I feel for everyone struggling with addiction, but remembering someone as a victim - of drugs, of homophobia, of racism, of the patriarchal system - removes so much of their personality and agency.
As this film opens, someone says something along the lines of, "she didn't die of addiction, she died of a broken heart." It's the chicken or the egg, really, as her addiction seems to stem from her heartbreak, but the rest of the film kind of runs with that quote. It glosses over the…
In 2010 we went to Whitney Houston's 'Queen of the Night' tour when it stopped off at London's O2 Arena. She was a shell of her former self, and her voice was totally shot; the lady herself was incoherent, giggling, clearly high, and messed up to such a degree that many in the audience left well before the end.
The one thing I remember clearly from the concert was her daughter Bobbi Kristina singing a solo bit from down on the floor, and now here we are, seven years later, and Whitney died in February 2012, while Bobbi died in 2015, in very similar circumstances to her mother, drowned while under the influence of something.
Nick Broomfield's film starts with…
whitney houston really had a full blown sexual relationship with a woman and this is the first time ive ever heard anything about this. huh.
♫ ♬ ░▒▓█ Where do broken hearts go? █▓▒░ ♬ ♫
This type of 'inside the tent' documentary normally leaves me thinking about the potential other side of the story. The story that is left untold perhaps, or one that wouldn't make the same impact on film.
This time I'm just left thinking three things:
🎙️ Robyn Crawford was treated awfully
🎙️ Bobby Brown deserves some painful retribution for what he did
🎙️ What a terrible waste of a beautiful soul and creative ability
A devastating documentary that is quite depressing and doesn’t spend a lot of time celebrating Whitney Houston’s glory days. A huge talent, an influence on others, and a person who certainly seemed to struggle towards the end. A well put together film.
Whitney Houston was beautiful and mega-talented. But she was also all too human. She perfectly hid her weaknesses from her fans until she just couldn't anymore. Believe it or not, she was riddled with insecurities. She had issues she refused to share with her public.
This documentary focuses on her negatives more than her positives, but it's still hard not to watch.
I'd always blamed Bobby Brown for introducing Whitney to drugs, but this documentary shows that Whitney and her brothers were all dabbling in substances way back in the day.
A devastating inside look at the downfall of one of my (and the world's) all time favourites.
Hard to take any joy from this, but I have to say that watching Whitney get excited about watching Set It Off whilst describing it as a 'ladies' movie' made my gay heart sing.
Nick Broomfield is one of those documentary makers that sometimes gets too caught up in his desire to uncover truths or injustice when investigating a project. Some of his documentaries have been a fascinating watch, others have struggled to find an audience or been accused of courting controversy by going towards conspiracy-theory territory in search of something that isn't really there. Kurt & Courtney was an interesting, but flawed dissection of what Broomfield really thought happened to Kurt Cobain, with Broomfield insisting Kurt was murdered on Courtney Love's behest. Broomfield has also taken on various other controversial subject matters, from serial killers to the aftermath of Apartheid, from Hollywood Madams to murdered rap stars. Whitney Houston's death in 2012 was a…
It's not really a good sign when a film leaves you with more questions than answers is it? This skips around Whitney's life at random, not filling in loads of blanks that I desperately wanted to know. Also made me deeply uncomfortable how Bobby Brown's domestic abuse of Whitney was skirted over and never directly mentioned.
BUT, the footage of Whitney watching Set It Off and shooting "Yes, shoot em all up!!!!" was a true blessing.
Rewatched this with a friend and three margaritas and now I’m just sad and drunk.
out of both Whitney docs, Can I Be Me clearly has a stronger thesis statement to make and central question to explore re: Whitney's desire to be who she wanted to be, which at the end of the day was just-- a regular human.
yet, it has way less access than the one Whitney's sister-in-law got a producing credit on, so there's that...
Kevin McDonald didn't do a worse job. I think both docs capture the magic of Whitney and examine different points of view in the life, rise, and fall of a legend.
Essential popstar doc viewing
"How would you like to be remembered?"
"Oh, God! How would I like to be remembered? It probably doesn't even matter anyway, because they're going to remember me how they want to remember me anyway! They're going to write books, write this, write that, and everybody's going to have their own idea. I don't know... I just think I want people just to remember me just being a real nice person. You know? Somebody who cared, you know? Somebody who tried to do everybody, you know, righteously, you know?"
***
Much in the same way as Amy showed with Amy Winehouse, Whitney: Can I Be Me details - with slow-motion-car-crash tragic inevitability - how a talented young woman (in this…