Tags archives: Brett Morgen
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10 years ago
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It’s tempting to wonder what Kurt Cobain would have thought about Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the much buzzed-about new documentary by Brett Morgen. On the one hand, he probably would have appreciated the unorthodox visuals, much of it dark, unsettling animation that builds on the musician’s own drawings. He would probably have been OK with Morgen’s use of Cobain himself as the main narrator, through interviews, home movies and notebook entries. But being an easily humiliated soul (one of the film’s revelations) who both craved attention and hated fame, Kurt might have had a hard time digesting such a raw, unflinching portrayal of himself, or really, any portrayal of himself. As the film shows again and again, Cobain was tormented by his own contradictory nature – he both wanted and despised normalcy, success, maybe life itself.
Like Morgen’s The Kid Stays in the Picture (adapted from producer Robert Evans’s autobiography), this is far from a conventional documentary. With its elaborate animation sequences and chaotic audio and video montages culled from films, ads and other sources including Cobain himself, it’s almost an art film – which makes sense given Morgen’s attempt to portray the inside of his subject’s head. It’s not a pretty place.
Montage of Heck (the title comes from one of Kurt’s own audio creations) is the first documentary about the Nirvana frontman that is “fully authorized” by his family. (Daughter Frances Bean Cobain is an executive producer; Ku[...]
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