As I’ve previously mentioned, Kurt Cobain is an important figure in my life. As a musician, his importance is clear, but it’s difficult to know how to assess him as a man.
AJ Schnack’s new documentary Kurt Cobain About a Son takes a fascinating approach. New York Times reporter Michael Azerrad interviewed Kurt back in 1993 in the course of writing his book Come As You Are: The Story Of Nirvana. They spoke over the course of months; by the end, they weren’t conducting an interview, so much as just talking as two people. Schnack got access to these tapes and so the whole movie is built around audio of Kurt talking. He’s not narrating the events of his life, but rather talking about himself. Schnack then went to Washington state and shot footage in the places where Kurt lived. He then augments that footage with general footage of those towns, the people on the street and animation sequences.
At first, it’s natural to see a disconnect between Kurt’s voice and the rest of the movie. In fact, it’s all connected. None of the music is by Nirvana, but the songs are all favorites of Kurt’s, ranging from Arlo Guthrie to David Bowie to Cheap Trick. You see the logging facility where Kurt’s father worked and where Kurt played as a kid. You see the house where he used to live. You see the high school where he worked as a janitor. But you also see the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. You see ordinary people, because Schnack is trying to show that Kurt Cobain and Courtney were ordinary people, but for the accident of fame — any couple on the street could have been them.
One interesting contrast the film sets up, without stating it explicitly, is between Aberdeen (where Kurt was born) and Olympia (where he moved and found fame). Aberdeen is a logging town. It’s all about big dumb arena rock — such as Black Sabbath, Queen and so on. Olympia is a bigger city. It’s all about independent rock, not selling out, maintaining artistic integrity. Nirvana was resolutely alternative and indie and yet they became the biggest rock band in America and still hold an incredible influence. The two towns, these two halves of Kurt’s life, tell you everything you need to know.
Schnack said after the screening that the film is intended to be a “death poem” for Kurt, and it works exactly as visual poetry. As an approach to telling the story of a person’s life, it could go so wrong — artsy abstract shots set to dreamy music — but instead it nails it so perfectly. You never see an image of Kurt until the very end, after he finishes talking. Then Schnack cuts to a series of photos of Kurt. They’re familiar images, not rare photos, but they are suddenly, shockingly, intimate. We thought we knew him, but we never really knew him before.
Tags: Silverdocs, Kurt Cobain About a Son, AJ Schnack