Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

Plot

Kurt Cobain is born in 1967 to car mechanic Donald Cobain and waitress Wendy Cobain. In 1970, shortly after his sister Kim is born, the family moves to Aberdeen, Washington. Kurt lives a normal childhood, although Donald occasionally picks on him. At the age of nine, his parents divorce. Kurt lives with Donald for a while until the latter marries Jenny Westeby and they have a kid together. He moves back in with Wendy and as a teenager, he becomes unruly and starts smoking pot with friends. He and his friends start to visit the home of a developmentally challenged high school classmate to steal alcohol belonging to her father. It becomes a hard time for Cobain, who considers suicide for the first time. After he attempts to have sex with the girl, his classmates begin insulting and shaming him. Unable to take the ridicule, Cobain lies down on the train tracks one night with the intent of ending his life by being run over by an oncoming train, but the train is diverted on the track next to Kurt, barely missing him.

After Kurt becomes homeless and living with friends, he eventually gets his own place at 17 and, in 1987, starts a rock band called "Nirvana" with former classmate Krist Novoselic on bass, Aaron Burckhard on drums, and himself on guitar. Nirvana's first "shows" consist of playing for a few friends and random passersby at local house parties. They eventually start playing at clubs and radio stations and Kurt starts dating Tracy Marander. The band, now with Chad Channing on drums, signs onto record label Sub Pop and they release their first album, Bleach. The band starts to have interviews and doing tours. After a short while, Kurt breaks up with Tracy. Nirvana leaves Sub Pop to sign onto DGC Records and Chad leaves the band, with Dave Grohl filling Chad's spot as the new drummer.

Under DGC Records, Nirvana records their landmark second album, Nevermind. The album's lead track, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", becomes a massive hit and the band is launched into the mainstream. Kurt meets Courtney Love and they start dating. In 1992, they get married after they find out she is pregnant, but at the same time Kurt begins using heroin. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Courtney mentions Kurt's heroin habit and that she tried it as well; Lynn Hirschberg, the journalist in charge of the interview, writes that Courtney used the drug while pregnant, misquoting her. Shortly after their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, is born, they are confronted by the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services, who take the Cobains to court, claiming that the couple's drug usage makes them unfit parents. Due to the claims made in the Vanity Fair article, Seattle child welfare agents remove the couple's baby daughter for around four weeks. The couple eventually obtains custody in an exchange for agreeing to provide urine tests and receiving regular visits from a social worker. After months of legal negotiations, the couple is eventually granted full custody of their daughter.

Production

The documentary is directed by Brett Morgen, who began work in 2007 when Cobain's widow Courtney Love approached him with the idea. It is the first documentary about Kurt Cobain to be made with the cooperation of his family. Morgen and his team were given access to the entirety of Cobain's personal and family archives. The documentary includes footage from various Nirvana performances and unheard songs, as well as unreleased home movies, recordings, artwork, photography, journals, demos, and songbooks. Morgen used the interviews in the film Lenny as a model for the interviews in the film. The film's title, Montage of Heck, takes its name from a musical collage that was created by Cobain with a 4-track cassette recorder in about 1988, of which there are two versions: one is about 36 minutes and the other about eight minutes. Several scenes were animated by Stefan Nadelman and Hisko Hulsing. Jeff Danna wrote an original score for the film. The film was co-produced by HBO Documentary Films and Universal Pictures International Entertainment Content Group. Cobain and Courtney Love's only daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was a co-executive producer on the film. David Byrnes, Lawrence Mestel, Cain McKnight, Dave Morrison, Sheila Nevins and Debra Eisenstadt were also executive producers.

Soundtrack

Ahead of screenings of the film on both HBO and international cinema releases, director Brett Morgen stated in an interview online that an album would be released in the months following the film's release that would include home recordings. Morgen said the album "will feel like you're kind of hanging out with Kurt Cobain on a hot summer day in Olympia, Washington as he fiddles about" but that "it's not a Nirvana album". The album was announced as featuring at least one unreleased track. Morgen stated that the album would be 85 minutes long. Per Deadline, Morgen confirmed that the soundtrack would be released the same day as the DVD: "It will come out November 6th, the same day as the DVD release."

Release

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2015 and was subsequently shown at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival on February 8, 2015. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United Kingdom on April 10, 2015. In the United States, Universal Studios distributed the film for a limited theatrical release on April 24, 2015, where it was shown in just three theaters: the Cinerama Dome at Arclight Hollywood, the SIFF Cinema Egyptian Theatre in Seattle, and the IFC Center in New York City. The film premiered on television in the United States on HBO on May 4, 2015 and was released on DVD and Blu-ray and a Super Deluxe Edition Box Set in North America on November 13, 2015.

Reception

Box office

The film grossed $107,055 during the first two days of its limited theatrical release in the United States. In the United Kingdom, where it was released on home video on April 27, 2015, the film topped the Official Charts Company's UK Music Video Chart Top 50 for the week of May 3–9, 2015 and peaked at number six on the UK Blu-ray Chart Top 100, number 13 on the UK DVD Chart Top 100, and 11 on the UK Video Chart Top 100.

Critical response

The film was met with an overwhelmingly positive response from critics, many of whom noted that the humanized portrayal of Cobain distinguished the film from prior works on the same subject. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 98% approval rating based on 89 reviews with an average rating of 8.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck makes a persuasive case for its subject without resorting to hagiography—and includes plenty of rare and unreleased footage for fans". At Metacritic, the film has received a score of 83 out of 100 based on 19 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The website also gave the film a "Metacritic Must-See" award.

David Fear of Rolling Stone described the film as "the unfiltered Kurt experience," noting that Cobain is shown "not [as] a spokesman for a generation," but as "a human being, and a husband, and a father." Boyd van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter concluded that the film is "impressive in parts, but wildly uneven as a whole." Consequence of Sound's Justin Gerber gave the film an "A" grade, writing that the film is "what can only be defined as the definitive Cobain documentary." Katie Walsh of Indiewire described it as "a true achievement, both in documentary filmmaking, and in preserving the memory and legacy of Cobain." Audrey Adler of NME wrote that the film is "the most holistic portrait of a rock icon ever created" and gave it a score of 9/10. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly wrote that the film is "a portrait that's at turns confessional, confused, and yes, even at times happy, that bring Cobain ... to life in a way that no other film or book has." Dennis Harvey of Variety wrote that the film is "absorbing stuff, amply conveying the magnetism of a conflicted leader who drew fanatical adoration, yet who one suspects wasn't easy company."

Accolades

The film was nominated for "Best Animated Special Production" at the 43rd Annie Awards as well as seven Primetime Emmy Awards.

Criticism

In May 2015, Alice Wheeler, a prominent rock photographer and personal friend of Kurt, criticized the film, stating that "Morgen repeats all the fake stories that were originally designed to minimize the truth about his drug use", along with "I am not saying none of those things happened, but the film emphasizes the two last years of Kurt's life, when he was on drugs and depressed. It is a disservice to his memory and music not to explore the years when he wrote all that great music and was happy". Wheeler also went on to note that the film has "no clear delineation of what happened before heroin and Courtney Love and after" and that the film "doesn't give a clear picture of the creative spirit in the Olympia music scene that Nirvana was part of before they became huge. Unfortunately Montage of Heck focuses on the Courtney years and the journal entries of the last two years while ignoring Kurt's more productive happy years. She was also critical of the animated-cartoon visuals of Cobain within the film, saying "it was making a weird fantasy of a sad and lonely boy… another myth, an example of one of the most malicious myths the film features is the idea that he was destined to commit suicide because of his childhood scars".

In June 2015, Buzz Osborne, close friend of Cobain and lead singer of the Melvins, called the film "mostly misguided fiction" and wrote that "people need to understand that 90% of Montage of Heck is bullshit". In an interview with RiffYou.com, Osborne reinforced his criticisms, stating "I happen to know a lot of the stuff [shared in the movie] isn't true. If people want to believe it and think he was capable of doing all those things, that's their problem. But, I am not going along with it".

Morgen later addressed Osborne's criticism of the film on the Opie and Anthony Radio Show, stating "He [Buzz] thinks everything Kurt says is bullshit, which, I actually kind of believe him. That was kind of the whole premise of my movie, was that Kurt was very mercurial. He was always spinning tales. So I thought, rather than make a movie based on his interviews, I'm going to make a movie based on his art. I don't know if there's a single fact, this is not a movie about facts and stats."

In June 2015, after the film released, Dale Crover, another personal friend of Cobain, who played drums in both Fecal Matter, Nirvana, and Cobain's musical heroes the Melvins, was interviewed on a podcast with Jack Antonio about the film. He was also critical of the film, notably about the "fat retard girl" story featured in the film, which he denounced as being not true, stating "Like that story he tells about the 'fat retard girl,' that's totally fake. We would have known that story. Even talking to friends of mine from Aberdeen who saw it, it's like 'I never heard about that.' I mean, you can tell he's reading it from a piece of paper. He probably wrote it, but it's not about him. The names of the guys he mentions in there, 'Oh, I used to hang out with Bill and Bob and Jeff,' it's like, who? Those people don't exist."

Companion book

Along with the film, a companion book of the same name was released. It is co-authored by Richard Bienstock and Morgen, who contributed a foreword. The book contains animation stills from the film as well as transcripts of interviews, photographs, and Cobain's artwork that were not featured in the film. Two editions of the book were published. Insight Editions published the North American edition, which contains 160 pages (ISBN 978-1608875498). Omnibus Press published the British edition, which contains 208 pages, under the name Kurt Cobain: A Montage of Heck (ISBN 978-1783059669).