Kurt Cobain: About a Son
| 15 Aug 2007
“Fuck them, they don’t need to know everything about me,” scoffs Kurt Cobain, having a conversation he probably didn’t conceive could make for footage that might be used in a documentary about his life, some 13 years after his death. Following the controversial release of personal diaries, dodgy demos and Gus Van Sant’s absurdly imaginative Last Days comes 97 minutes of unprecedented access, gleaned from 25 hours of unpublished interviews held between Cobain and rock writer Michael Azerrad (Come As You Are, Our Band Could Be Your Life) between 1992 and 1993.
Director Aj Schnack further sets the scene by synchronising Cobain’s linear monologue with colourful animations, filmed footage from childhood haunts and well timed snippets of the music that informed his own approach; from Queen and CCR to The Melvins and Scratch Acid. The complete package comes together well, augmenting the conviction of Cobain’s storytelling, though revealing his self-confessed yin and yang of nihilistic and sensitive tendencies. Even in the absence of his songs from the soundtrack, the picture painted is one often vivid enough to evoke the sentiments which lay behind many of them, from School to All Apologies, while Cobain expands on everything from playground tribulations to his relationship with his father.
“No journalist has the right to ask me if I do drugs,” Cobain later asserts, but Azerrad pokes away regardless, boldly enquiring into how often he indulged in heroin. This line of taboo questioning soon aligns itself with a free flowing trust between the two, forming a firm, humane basis for the demystification of Generation X’s most enigmatic personality. Whether or not this posthumous record straightening package was down to Azerrad’s disarming interview style is up for conjecture, but the results are only as intrusive as the man himself allowed it to be.
Director Aj Schnack further sets the scene by synchronising Cobain’s linear monologue with colourful animations, filmed footage from childhood haunts and well timed snippets of the music that informed his own approach; from Queen and CCR to The Melvins and Scratch Acid. The complete package comes together well, augmenting the conviction of Cobain’s storytelling, though revealing his self-confessed yin and yang of nihilistic and sensitive tendencies. Even in the absence of his songs from the soundtrack, the picture painted is one often vivid enough to evoke the sentiments which lay behind many of them, from School to All Apologies, while Cobain expands on everything from playground tribulations to his relationship with his father.
“No journalist has the right to ask me if I do drugs,” Cobain later asserts, but Azerrad pokes away regardless, boldly enquiring into how often he indulged in heroin. This line of taboo questioning soon aligns itself with a free flowing trust between the two, forming a firm, humane basis for the demystification of Generation X’s most enigmatic personality. Whether or not this posthumous record straightening package was down to Azerrad’s disarming interview style is up for conjecture, but the results are only as intrusive as the man himself allowed it to be.