美国国家公共电台 NPR A Radiant, Isolated Star: A New Documentary Tells Whitney Houston's Story

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Whitney Houston - so many of us felt the power and emotion in her beautiful voice. But she lived a turbulent life, and she died way too young. A new unauthorized documentary is opening in theaters today, and it will be on Showtime in a week. It is called "Whitney: Can I Be Me." Here's NPR TV critic Eric Deggans.

ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE¹: Who exactly was Whitney Houston?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU")

WHITNEY HOUSTON: (Singing) And I will always love you.

DEGGANS: Was she the radiant and beautiful pop princess with enduring hits like "I Will Always Love You"? Was she the down-to-earth one-time gospel singer from the hood² in Newark who couldn't believe the crowd at the 1989 Soul Train Awards booed her as a sellout?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HOUSTON: Sometimes it gets down to if you're not black enough for them, you know, or you're not R&B enough. You're very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them.

DEGGANS: Or was she the unstable³ celebrity⁴ struggling with drug problems and an enabling husband let down by those closest to her and isolated⁵ by her fame? "Whitney: Can I Be Me" suggests this identity crisis helped contribute to the death of one of the best singers in pop music.

Houston's saxophonist, Kirk Whalum, summed it up in a quote which became the title of the film.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME")

KIRK WHALUM: Her favorite saying was - can I be me? In fact, she would say it so much that we had it sampled - c-c-c-c-can (ph) I be me? That was the conundrum⁶. Like, damn it, I have made all this money and made all these people happy, and I still can't be me.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HOUSTON: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

DEGGANS: Directed by Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal, the film shows Houston's career starting when pop music was more strictly⁷ segregated⁸. Arista Records head Clive Davis avoided material which sounded too close to R&B, in other words, too black. Former Arista marketing⁹ executive Kenneth Reynolds explains.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME")

KENNETH REYNOLDS: The company had this image in mind that they were going to create a pop icon¹⁰, an artist that was accepted by the masses, translating to the - white America. Her music was...

DEGGANS: But that facade¹¹ was threatened when rumors¹² surfaced about Houston's close ties to longtime friend and assistant Robyn Crawford. The film quotes a friend who says Houston was bisexual. Journalist Allison Samuels also spoke¹³ about it in the movie.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME")

ALLISON SAMUELS: It wasn't cool to have a lesbian affair. You know, today - I always think, if she were a artist today, she'd be fine. Everything would be lovely. She probably would still be here. But back then, it was this tremendous emphasis on being the perfect girl.

DEGGANS: There were other stories. A family friend notes that she and Houston used drugs together as teenagers. A former bodyguard¹⁴ says he was fired when he tried to alert Houston's managers to rampant¹⁵ drug use by the singer and those around her in the mid-'90s. Another friend says Houston's husband, bad boy R&B singer Bobby Brown, wasn't faithful and intensified¹⁶ their use of substances. The film suggests that when Crawford left the singer's life after one too many arguments with Bobby Brown, Houston's drug use accelerated. She accidentally drowned in a hotel bathtub on February 11, 2012.

The biggest problem here - because the film is unauthorized by Houston's estate, Broomfield and Dolezal lack access to crucial sources. There's no original interviews with Clive Davis, Bobby Brown or Houston's mother, Cissy Houston. They appear in clips from other media outlets¹⁷. There's never-before-seen backstage footage from the singer's 1999 world tour and interviews with Crawford recorded then, but no recent footage.

Still, "Whitney: Can I Be Me" provides a compelling portrait of a supreme¹⁸ talent isolated by fame, dysfunctional relationships and a crushing drug habit, slowly diminished by some of the same qualities that originally made her a superstar. I'm Eric Deggans.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU")

HOUSTON: (Singing) And I will always love you.