kurt cobain about a son

[mogwai]

YouTube trailer .

Release date: 2007 (limited)

Starring: Kurt Cobain (audio interviews)

Directed by: AJ Schnack

Premise: Kurt Cobain About a Son is a documentary about Kurt Cobain that debuted at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. It is directed by AJ Schnack. It features audio of interviews between Cobain and journalist Michael Azerrad done for the book Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, set over ambient cinematography. The film has played numerous film festivals and will open in theatres in the fall of 2007.

The movie features a soundtrack made up of bands which influenced Cobain, such as Queen, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Big Black, The Melvins, The Vaselines, Bad Brains and Mudhoney. The rest of the music in the film is a score composed by Steve Fisk and Ben Gibbard of The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie, designed to meld the songs of the soundtrack together. The film contains no music performed by Nirvana. (source: wikipedia)

Movie website: http://www.kurtcobainaboutason.com

[ElPandaRoyal]

I'm not even a huge Nirvana fan, but this trailer looked pretty sweet. Nice concept, plus Kurt Cobain always seemd like an interesting character to listen to.

[mogwai]

opens in new york on 3 october at the ifc center. then in los angeles at the landmark nuart on 5 october. more information is available on the movie's website.

[RegularKarate]

This was one of the better movies at SXSW this year... no on-screen interviews and no Nirvana music

[MacGuffin]

indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Kurt Cobain: About a Son" Director AJ Schnack

Director AJ Schnack's doc "Kurt Cobain: About a Son" is probably the closest thing to an autobiography by the former Nirvana lead singer as possible. The film draws upon a series of audiotaped conversations between Cobain and music writer Michael Azerrad over 1992 and 1993, recorded for Azerrad's book "Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana." Just one year later, Cobain had killed himself. The film utilizes these recordings while artfully displaying Cobain's upbringing in Washington State. Balcony Releasing opens "About a Son" beginning Wednesday, October 3 at IFC Center in New York followed by further roll outs.

Please introduce yourself...

I grew up in Edwardsville, Illnois, a small college town just outside of St. Louis. My parents were school teachers and summer camp counselors. I went to the University of Missouri for journalism school and worked for a bit as a reporter/anchor at the NBC affiliate there (which the school owned and operated). I realized in this context that trying to tell interesting, complicated stories in "sexy" 75-second TV news packages was not something I was going to enjoy so I moved to Los Angeles to pursue film.

What initially attracted you to filmmaking, and how has that interest evolved during your career?

I was always interested in being a filmmaker, but the sense of it when I was younger was that there wasn't a clearly defined path. It's not like we knew other filmmakers that we could ask for tips. It seemed very foreign. But the desire of storytelling, both in written and visual forms, was always present, thus the side journey into journalism. Once I had been in Los Angeles for a while, and had weathered a torturous stint work on television game shows, I got involved with music videos, and somewhat quickly, I was starting a music video division at a commercial production company. For the next seven years, I worked with a number of different directors as an executive producer at Bonfire Films, the company I started with my partner Shirley Moyers. At the end of that time period, I was ready to focus on my own projects, which is something that I always intended, but it was great to have that time learning by watching other filmmakers learn their craft.

Are there other aspects of filmmaking that you would still like to explore?

In addition to the projects I want to direct, I'd actually like to do more producing and executive producing. I'm EPing a documentary about the legendary singer Andre Williams right now. That process of working with other filmmakers was something that I really liked about my old music video days and it's important to me, that sense of building a community.

Please discuss how the idea for "Kurt Cobain: About a Son came about."

When I was making my first film, "Gigantic (A Tale Of Two Johns)," I met the music journalist Michael Azerrad. He was profiling [the band] They Might Be Giants for the New Yorker and I interviewed him for my film. Later, we were at a dinner together and I asked him about his time with Kurt. Michael had written the book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana" and had interviewed Kurt at length about a year before he died. Michael told me that he had hours and hours of audiotaped interviews with Kurt. Knowing Michael's book, I knew that these conversations were the most complete and intimate interviews that Kurt ever gave and were an important cultural document. About a year later, I approached Michael about making a film from his tapes.

Please elaborate a bit on your approach to making the film as well as your overall goals for the project?

Well, one of my favorite nonfiction films is Godfrey Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi" and I've long wanted to do something in nonfiction that has the visual resonance that that film has. But I also wanted to take it in a different direction by creating a narrative within that visual framework, and when I started thinking about these audio-only interviews and Kurt's story in particular, it seemed the right approach.

One of the reasons I was interested in doing a film about Kurt was because my then-13-year old nephew was starting to get interested in him and in Nirvana and I realized that for him, Kurt was always going to be this guy who was clouded by controversies of heroin addiction, a famous wife, endless speculations and conspiracy theories of his death. And I thought about this and it seemed almost bizarre that the Kurt Cobain all of us were introduced to had none of these things hanging from him. So the idea of stripping away everything that the audience could hold on to--the flannel, the cardigans, the performance footage, the bad early '90s videotape archival footage--became very important to me. And this kind of visual imagery--the actual places where the man lived, his homes, the places he worked, went to school, played shows--the landscapes of nature and architecture and of human faces, seeing the world that Kurt saw, became an important way of re-introducing the audience t o someone that they think they already know.

Who are some of the creative influences that have had the biggest impact on you?

As someone who is working squarely in the long tradition of films about music and musicians, I can't help but be influenced by those who've returned to the form again and again, among them DA Pennebaker, the Maysles, Penelope Spheeris, Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Demme. But also, my contemporaries, people like Doug Pray and Grant Gee who seek to expand the nonfiction form. For this project, Reggio obviously, but also Gus Van Sant (particularly "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho") and the photographers William Eggleston, Nan Goldin, Edmund Teske and Aberdeen, Washington native Lee Friedlander.

What other genres or stories would like to explore as a filmmaker?

I have a few more music films in me that I really want to do. Actually, I'd like to deal with music now and again for the rest of my career. But there are some other films that deal with more political and social topics that I have in mind, but I'd like to continue to work in non-tradition forms.

What is your definition of "independent film," and has that changed at all since you first started working?

Well, one thing that's changed drastically since when I did "Gigantic" is that the number of distribution companies has shrunk. It was actually more difficult to get distribution for a film about Kurt Cobain than it was for a film about They Might Be Giants, which says something about the state of the industry, I think. I also think that aside from the bubble of success that occured for documentaries between 2003 and 2006, distributors are less sure now as to what will work and what won't. Take "Helvetica" for example. When I was in New York last week during the IFP Market, people were talking about the amazing business this doc about a font did at the IFC Center and more than one person said to me, "you just never know."

And I think the fact that ("Helvetica" director) Gary (Hustwit) actually turned down at least one distribution offer to go the self-distribution route was a very important part of that story. He knew who his audience was and he was convinced he could reach that audience better than a distributor could. I don't know yet whether that's a model for the future, in part because it's still so difficult to book theatres, but with more filmmakers raised on a DIY model, it's probably something that we will see more of.

I guess that's the sort of thing that feels like independent film to me today. When you've got a ragtag crew like we have on "About A Son"--a production company in New York, a husband-wife filmmaking team in Los Angeles, a mom-and-pop distribution company in Massachuesetts and an indie record label in Seattle--all trying to get a movie to as many theaters in as many cities as we possibly can, on a (very) limited budget, while we get emails from kids asking us to please, please get the movie to Boise or to Fort Myers or to Ann Arbor. That's pretty indie.

What are some of your all-time favorite films as well as some of your recent favorite films?

Aside from "KoyaanIwqatsi and the obvious touchstones of "Gimme Shelter," "Don't Look Back," and "Stop Making Sense," I'm a big fan of Hitchcock, Hal Ashby and Robert Altman.

Recently, I've loved "Billy the Kid," "The Monastery," "Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)" and I still can't get over Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy."

Please share an achievement from your career so far that you are most proud of.

My ability to open a wine bottle with a very large, very sharp knife at IDFA last year without injuring myself or others remains a point of pride. Also, my performance of Sham 69's When the Kids Are United at BritDoc this summer was a highpoint of a very long festival run. On everything else, I'm still learning.

[noyes]

( last paragraph ("what affected me the most...") is a bit of a spoiler)

I didn't even know this was playing today (at the IFC Center) until I was walking along 6th Avenue this afternoon and spotted it written across the marquee. Bought a 1:40 ticket and sat upstairs, staring at a "The Cranes Are Flying" poster until the movie started (it was about 1:00 then). I read the very short review in the L Magazine and it was negative so I thought, "hmm.." Then I read Camille Dodero's review in today's Village Voice and it was on the brighter side, which reassured me. Went downstairs into the theater and waited for the movie to start.

'About A Son' hit me in a way I didn't think it would. I was interested in the whole idea of the film ever since I read that 'Sight and Sound Magazine' review a few months ago, and the idea of listening to bits and pieces of the 24+ hours of audio recorded by Azerrad in late '92/early '93 set into a narrative excited me. And I guess when the movie started what at first seemed timid and simple began in about 10 minutes or so to really resonate and was, as Dodero writes, "deeply moving." Contrary to what may be looked upon as a negative aspect, what Schnack has filmed to compliment Kurt's voice, in terms of landscapes and environmental ambience, helps the movie *be* a movie. The fact that what you see is essentially Kurt's world as he saw it and as he lived in it (many, if not all, places being the exact same places Kurt inhabited) is an important and a visually stunning part of the film (animation included).

If you're a big Nirvana/Kurt fan, biographically speaking, you will notice just about every visual reference there is in the film, from the Pear Street apartment he shared with Tracy in Olympia to his schools and the streets of Aberdeen, Montesano, and Seattle. On the other side of that coin, you will also have most likely heard or read, in some form or another, a lot of what Kurt says in the film, though he definitely expounds deep into new and unheard of aspects of his life. Of course, though, it isn't so much what he says but how he says it. He speaks in an obviously comfortable and trusting tone. He sounds the most genuine you'll ever hear Kurt sound and it's because he was. He comes off lucid, happy, articulate, vulnerable, mad, confused, passionate: merely human.

Along the way, you see strangers faces a lot. Basically they are the faces of those aforementioned towns/cities current residents. Some were matter of fact, one was funny and I guess most were there to humanize Kurt and show the people that now make up the population of where Kurt grew up, I guess. It didn't affect me too much. One thing that kind of irked me though was some of the editing. Audio and visual sometimes were edited and segwayed (sp?) awkwardly. And some of the audio differ in quality but I realize that can't be helped.

What affected me the most was the ending, which was hinted at in Dodero's review. When talking about Frances and his life and where he wanted it to go, and where he saw it going, Courtney calls to Kurt, interrupting his conversation with Azerrad and asks for a favor (i don't recall precisely what she says but it may have had something to do with Frances.. not sure), she asks him not to forget and he assures her. Cutting to black and to another interview, Azerrad asks Kurt if he is a martian (echoing and alluding to the earlier mention by Kurt of thinking he was an alien baby who was dropped down to earth) and he responds, "yes," while they laugh. Azerrad proceeds to thank Kurt "from the bottom of his heart" and wishes him "good luck." He says good night and bye, and Kurt responds with a gentle, "Bye Michael." The click of the phone hangs in the darkness and is followed by photographs of Kurt by Charles Peterson.
It's a sad and beautifully poignant ending.

I enjoyed it and don't think I'm overpraising it.
It was definitely a wonderful documentary.
Highly recommended.


(in short, to quote someone by the name of neadysamurai on youtube, "The film is not a documentary about Nirvana, the band Kurt fronted, nor is it even a documentary in the traditional sense, but a profound, almost dream-like account of Cobain's own successes and failures, thoughts and experiences, allowing the audience unprecedented intimacy with a legendary figure in popular culture.")

pretty much.

[Ghostboy]

This is definitely one of my favorite films of the year. It's been a big influence on me in all sorts of ways, in the months since I've seen it, and I can't wait to experience it again.

[mogwai]

i just wish i lived in the areas where the movie is showing. this is a movie i'd like to see on a big screen rather than seeing it on dvd.

[MacGuffin]

In the year leading up to Kurt Cobain's death, the Nirvana frontman sat down with writer Michael Azerrad and told him the story of his life. From December 1992 to March 1993, the two conversed into the early morning hours in the kitchen of Cobain's Lake Washington home, recording over 25 hours of audio tape laden with stories that spanned from Cobain's childhood in Aberdeen, to his self-realized artistic ambitions in Olympia, to his fame-fatigued last months in Seattle. These tapes were used as material for Azerrad's 1993 book "Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana," though it wasn't until now that anyone, save the two involved, had ever heard the conversations.

With the documentary "Kurt Cobain About a Son," director AJ Schnack creates a highly personal and moving portrait of an iconic figure who, though many claim to understand, few actually knew. The film layers Cobain's narration over new footage shot on location at the late singer's stomping grounds in Washington.

One of the film's greatest strengths is the degree to which Cobain's sly humor and idiosyncrasies really come through. It is the peculiar details in his stories, such as his short-lived obsession with turtles, which color up a character so often presumed gloomy. It is Kurt Cobain's story told the only way it really can be, in his own words.

SuicideGirls caught up with AJ Schnack to discuss "Kurt Cobain About A Son," one of this 2007's most controversial and highly anticipated films...

EB:So when I first heard about this film, I thought, "Why is this coming out now? What's the catch?" Then I read you weren't even interested in making a film about Kurt until you heard about Michael Azerrad's tapes and the fact that they existed. And even he hadn't listened to them since Kurt's death. Were you cautious to step into that territory?

AJ:Well, when I first heard about the tapes I just wanted to hear them. When Michael told me about them my first thought was, "Okay, you haven't listened to these in 12 years, but how can I convince you to share them with me, someone who you just met not too long ago?" My nephew was 13 at the time and he was starting to get into Nirvana. In talking to him about it I realized that the Kurt Cobain he saw was this guy who was completely encumbered by heroin addiction, a controversial wife and conspiracy theories about his death and all this baggage. When I first started listening to Nirvana and was interested in Kurt, none of that was part of [that story]. To me it was always about this guy who came from a really unlikely place, this logging town on the coast of Washington, who moves to Olympia and then suddenly, in a year's time, they were the biggest rock band in the world. On a bigger level, the reason why I wanted to do the film is that Kurt is actually a really important cultural figure of the late 20th Century. He was the first person of my generation to talk about things like divorce, violence against women, gay rights and [other] social issues that he spoke out about in a way that we hadn't really seen a lot of people do.

EB:I love that part where he talks about how everybody in his high school thought he was gay so eventually he developed a sense of gay pride and identified with gay students, even though he was straight. It was hilarious and also very true, that he could identify so much with these issues whether or not they had really happened to him.

AJ:Yeah, the great thing about Kurt and why I think he continues to inspire such strong feelings in people, is because he really does represent this outsider figure who is not part of the popular crowd and having to find your way in the world. That's still appealing to people and I think that is why people feel protective of him because there's this sense that he's constantly being taken advantage of in some way. Specifically, if anyone feels protective of Kurt, I think Michael is certainly one of those people. People talk about Kurt and make declarative statements -- people who never met Kurt, who never had any intimate knowledge of him, will make these declarative statements about who Kurt is and Michael will just feel like, "No, that's not who he was at all." Michael ultimately wanted to do this project because he felt it was a way for him to take some of that back and to again reintroduce [the idea of Kurt].

EB:It's like handing the power back to Kurt, and giving him voice again, post-mortem.

AJ:Exactly. Yeah.

EB:This film is not a standard documentary, especially one that we're used to seeing about a person like him, someone still surrounded by so much controversy. It's not a rock doc; It's more or an autobiography. And it's been years since his death but people still seem to be so hungry for a definitive portrait of some kind. Nothing has satiated audiences. Maybe nothing ever will but I'm still very curious, what do you think audiences still want from Kurt?

AJ:I think they want connection to him. When I see people who are hungry for something, it's a feeling of communion with him in a weird way. I think people who were around him at the time felt deprived of by his sudden death and I think the people who have become fans since his death, or discovered him since his death, feel that they missed out on that opportunity. It's a strange thing to talk about when it's someone who most people didn't meet and only knew through music. I think a lot of people are still looking for a sense of closure and unfortunately the sort of darker conspiratorial elements that surround his death, not only do they not bring that closure...

EB:...They take you farther away from it.

AJ:Yeah, they make it more difficult to reach it. This project really was about stripping everything away and letting people have a moment with this man. The film is not about that he's a great musician or the greatest guitar player or any of that. It's really about what it was to be this guy, from this particular place, at this particular time, and it's a quiet moment. That's what is the most different from a traditional rock film. It's mostly this very intimate, quiet experience.

EB:You've said that it was important to you to deny the audience the usual reference points in order to approach Kurt from a new perspective. I agree and I definitely got that feeling from watching the film. It's really odd that the public image of him is still so fucking convoluted and crazy, you know? Do you think it's going to make people uncomfortable or upset that it's not...

AJ:...More traditional?

EB:Yeah, it doesn't really give you an opinion or carry any particular message throughout. Instead, it puts a lot of the interpretation and responsibility back into the audience's hands.

AJ:Yeah, people have to have their own experience with the experience, with what they've seen and what has happened. The funny thing about this style of filmmaking, it fits squarely within a non-fiction tradition that deals primarily in visuals to tell a certain story. I don't look at it like it's this hugely groundbreaking thing. But it is different in terms of the rock doc genre and what people expect. There are people who, their dream of a Nirvana documentary is the song they've never heard before, or the footage of the wedding show they've never seen. That film will probably be made some day and probably it will be something that Courtney and Chris and Dave on some level will try to work out. This is not a Nirvana documentary. The words, "Smells like teen spirit" are never said in the film. The word "Nirvana" is said once in the film and it's at the very end. That gives you a sense that it's going in a different direction. It really is about time and place and particularly about a sense of place -- what this area of the world was like and remains like today. To some extent it's about people's expectations. There was this very funny thing on our MySpace page where this person wrote, "I don't understand, there's no music!" Someone wrote, "If you need to hear 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' so damn bad, pull out your hot pink iPod and listen to it." I thought that was pretty great [laughs].

EB:About sense of place, is it important for you to have audiences know the significance of these places that you shot, like when you're shooting in Kurt's kitchen or the significance of the post office?

AJ:Right. Yeah that was something we talked about. I just didn't want to clutter up the screen by saying, "Actual Place; his actual house; his Dad's actual office." I hoped through a combination of people reading about the film and people writing about the film and conveying this information, you know, and they learned something they didn't know before. I did kind of think that people would generally give us the benefit of doubt that, if we're going to Aberdeen, that we would actually go to the real places. Ultimately I'm happy about the fact that the people are in some ways learning it later and having it bring a new perspective. I hope that people will then want to re-look at it when they know that the opening shot is Kurt's kitchen, where the interviews took place. To me, what is great about any artistic endeavor is that you can experience it in different ways at different times. Hopefully that's something that this film can be.

EB:It's a very simple, quiet film, and really powerful in that way but it's also very, very dense. It's filled with a lot of detail.

AJ:Yeah, in shooting it and working on it, we really tried to make every shot count. When people really don't know that that's the case, they refer to the imagery being random, which some people have done.

EB:That seems kind of naïve.

AJ:Yeah, it is kind of naïve because things are so specific. The post office shot, as he's talking about his drug use and we're showing this phone booth outside the post office, that's where they did their heroin deals. My goal is that people will see it and then they feel like they've seen the world through Kurt's eyes and feel like they've had the experience.

EB:I read that you originally wanted to end it with a Nirvana song and then you realized it was too triumphant for a point of mourning. I'm glad you didn't because just hearing the two men, Kurt and Michael, say their good-byes was one of the most poignant ways for it to end. It was one of the most powerful moments in the whole film, to end on that note. Just to hear them say, "Alright, I'll talk to you later," and then say each other's names because up until that point you really don't hear them say each other's names at all. It brings you back to the fact that these guys had a relationship.

AJ:Yeah. I agree with you, the good-bye and the scene before which sort of underlines the depths of his depression that he's had all these moments in the film where he keeps telling you, "Oh, if I just have something happen I'm going to be happy. You know, "If I can just start a band," or "If I can make friends in high school", or "Get a girlfriend" or "Pay for an apartment."

EB:Or have a family.

AJ:So at the end for him to say, "I'll never have that family." Then you hear Courtney's voice call down to ask him to bring a bottle [for the baby], and he doesn't even realize that this moment has happened and it's identifying that he has a family. I find that heartbreaking. To me this is kind of the most special thing I could think of that is out there. I think these interviews are a hugely important cultural document.

EB:And on another level you know, kind of an awesome way for certain people to get closure.

AJ:I know, Michael said that and even I think Charles Peterson and Steve Fisk have said it as well. It was a way. I think one of the things that I really wanted from all those guys, since I never met Kurt, was, after I had cut together with Michael's help, the audio track was the first thing that we did. Then I played it for people who were working on the film, including Charles and Steve, who both knew Kurt and both of them said, "Yeah, that's the guy, that's the guy we loved and who was funny. That's the guy who would piss you off and drive you crazy and make you mad." And that to me that's what I wanted. I mean if they felt that in these conversations we actually tapped in and got the whole person, the good and the bad, which, I think is also slightly different from a traditional view of a music film. We didn't try to make Kurt into more of an icon, or more of a legend in the film. We really wanted to let his flaws show. I think that allowing the whole truth, including the uglier parts of it to come out is the best thing we could have done for him.