Dead End Drive-In: Now Showing – Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck
Written by Johnny H
Sunday, 03 May 2015 04:00
Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck (Universal Pictures)
Dubbed “the most intimate rock doc ever” by Rolling Stone magazine, the simple fact that writer/director Brett Morgen interviews both of Kurt Cobain’s birth parents, his stepmother, his sister, his first girlfriend and his bass player all in the first twenty odd minutes of Montage Of Heck should immediately indicate this is no superficial retelling of the Nirvana frontman’s life, and death.
Initially using the tried and tested talking heads format to help create the outline of how Cobain’s Aberdeen childhood went from dysfunctional drop out to creative genius, Morgen cuts in sections of archive family footage along with some fantastic animation in order to colour in the story of how a disenfranchised youth on the verge of teenage suicide finally connected with the outside world through his love of music, in this case punk rock music. Unlike other rock docs though the director tries to actually put us in the head of Cobain, isolating key events from his childhood (with the full cooperation of the aforementioned talking heads) to ascertain why his path to stardom went exactly the way it did, rather than simply give us his own opinion on what ultimately caused Cobain to take his own life on April 5th 1994. One particularly pivotal moment comes very early on in the film when Kurt’s step mother Jenny Cobain admits that her losing patience with Kurt finally pushed her and her husband (Kurt’s father) Don Cobain – who is sat next to his wife at this point- to ask him to leave their home. This after his mother had already rejected him, seemingly being the catalyst to set Kurt off on his journey through a world of outsiders and outcasts, to eventually become their (perhaps ironically) never to be crowned king.
Having been a fan of Nirvana from their ‘Bleach’ days I myself knew very little of the band outside of the fact that the punk rock racket contained within that record made me want to break things…but in a good way…if that makes any sense at all, and watching the footage of the fledging Nirvana I kind of get the feeling that is exactly how Cobain himself wanted his music to be consumed (and I use that term in the literal sense here rather than what it would eventually turn into). Perhaps a direct reaction to the middle class yet seemingly totally dysfunctional upbringing he had received as a child, Cobain’s music was (and still is) a middle finger to the world around him, a world full of bands like Warrant, Skid Row and Danger Danger. And with that stellar cast of bands in mind, boy did I also need something like ‘Negative Creep’ to cleanse me of the mainstream hard rock wank that was polluting my life at that point. Nirvana were the underground, the reaction to all this stylised shit, and it was something Cobain, (and I, I must admit) was very happy to be a part of.
It’s during the media frenzy that surrounds what would be Nirvana’s breakthrough second album that we get the first true glimpses of Kurt’s much vaunted love/hate relationship with fame, one minute he sees the necessity of selling a certain number of records to sustain a level of financial stability in his life, the next he hates interviews and anyone who wants to ask him a question. I guess today Cobain would be officially diagnosed and treated for this condition, but back in the early ‘90s the natural crutch for dealing with these issues and persistent problems with his stomach became…. Heroin! It is at this point the film takes a rather peculiar and (I think) harrowing twist, and as the meteoric rise of ‘Nevermind’ plays out through some stunningly euphoric live footage, the kismet that ultimately brought Kurt and Courtney Love together takes us off into an hour plus of perhaps some of the most self-deprecating and ultimately traumatic footage I have ever seen in a rock doc. Forget the Chelsea Hotel scenes from D.O.A. that is light entertainment compared to what happens next in Montage Of Heck, and if I’m totally honest I really don’t ever want to watch this part of the film ever again.
Love herself takes us through this segment of the movie, and never being a fan of hers I can’t say she does anything here to suddenly make me go “oh I got her wrong all along”, however what I will say is that by releasing the footage that makes up the ‘In Utero’ days of Cobain’s life she has also unleashed some of the best anti-drugs footage you will ever wish to see. The birth and early days of the couple’s daughter Francis Bean drift by in an almost Eraserhead like haze whilst Cobain’s scribblings (which are animated throughout the film) become more and more nihilistic in tone as the minutes slowly creep past, all making for some pretty uneasy viewing. As a fan of the band, I must confess I had lost all interest in Nirvana by this point, I couldn’t even be bothered to buy a ticket for the 1994 ‘In Utero’ UK tour, largely because I felt the band had become a pantomime version of their former selves, by becoming the bands they had initially rebelled against, maybe even believing the media circus that surrounded them. Nirvana were just another rock n roll casualty, albeit this time dressed in jumpers and t shirts instead of leather trousers and cowboy boots.
Of course that UK tour would never take place as Cobain would end up talking his life before it could happen, and here as Montage Of Heck enters its final five or ten minutes it closes the circle of Cobain’s life to return to Kurt’s birth mother, Wendy Elizabeth, to understand how she could tell her son was past helping in those final days. There’s no in-depth analysis of Cobain’s eventual suicide only a black screen outlining the details, likewise there is no outpouring of grief post his death that other such documentaries on Cobain have centred on. Nah, Montage Of Heck is ultimately a warts ‘n’ all celebration of Cobain’s life and the musical legacy he left behind, and for anyone even remotely interested in either a) thinking about being a tortured rock star or b) trying hard drugs for the first time, this 145 minutes of rock cinema at its very darkest is enough to put you off both…for life.
So, whilst this is a stimulating piece of cinema I also found this film painful to watch at times, and if your idea of Nirvana stops and ends with what MTV told you about the band you really should keep this DVD or Blu-ray well away from your player! If on the other hand you loved the band for all the reasons I’ve outlined already, this really is compulsory viewing.
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