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Kurt Cobain himself narrates a new documentary film
A crew of documentary filmmakers from Los Angeles has been in Aberdeen this week, shooting a documentary on the life of the late Kurt Cobain — one that will be narrated by Cobain himself.
The producers are drawing on taped interviews the “Nirvana” frontman did with Michael Azerrad, author of the Nirvana biography “Come As You Are.”
Using Cobain’s own voice to tell the story and focusing on the place where he grew up, director AJ Schnack said, is the filmmakers’ way of making the Grunge rock star human again — instead of the untouchable icon his meteoric rise and tragic fall made him.
“I have a nephew and a cousin who have become big Nirvana fans,” said Schnack, 37. “To them, Kurt has become this huge, larger-than-life figure. You’re completely unable to relate to him because he is such an icon. That’s not how I felt about him when he was alive, and I feel like that’s been lost. Especially because of the circumstances of his later life, and his death, I think now it’s not really about the music or the fact that he really was just a human being. And so I really wanted to deconstruct that a little bit, and what better way than to just let him talk?”
Schnack met Azerrad a couple of years ago doing another documentary, and learned he had the tapes.
“I knew Azerrad had written ‘Come As You Are,’ but I didn’t realize he had all this material. He told me he had 25 hours of interviews with Kurt, and he wanted to do something interesting and good with it, but he didn’t know what that would be. So I proposed this (film) idea, and that’s how we got started,” Schnack said between shots at the Aberdeen Timberland Library Wednesday afternoon.
The film, budgeted at about $1 million, likely will be sent to film festivals some time next fall, according to Shirley Moyers, the film’s producer and Schnack’s wife. The couple previously collaborated on a documentary called “Gigantic,” about the New York rock band They Might Be Giants. As with their previous film, Moyers said, they hope to be able to show the movie in Aberdeen, Cobain’s home town, before it goes to general release.
“I think we’ll have a rough cut ready likely in February, and we might make it for the summer festivals,” Moyers said. “More likely it will be ready in the fall. On ‘Gigantic,’ we did a screening for friends and family of They Might Be Giants, but we paid for that ourselves. On this film, we have investors, and sometimes they’re a little leery of who they show the film to before it goes to theaters. But it seems only reasonable that we could do a showing here for the community first.”
The film has three sections, Schnack said, starting with Cobain’s life in Aberdeen, then Nirvana’s pre-stardom period in Olympia, then a final section covering Seattle and the band’s explosion into international stardom.
“In book form and various forms of documentaries, a lot of people are trying … to bring family members and band members together to talk about the band, and put Kurt in some kind of context,” the director said. “What I wanted to do was to not do that at all, and not have anyone commenting on Kurt. Because I sort of feel that at this place in history, there’s such a mythology. So much controversy has been built up about him and about his life and death, that I really wanted to get back to how I related to him and Nirvana as a younger music fan, and just let Kurt talk.”
The filmmakers aren’t using any archival footage, Schnack said, preferring to show what it’s like to live in Aberdeen now. There are also no interviews with “talking heads” or other so-called experts.
“It’s just going to be 90 minutes of Kurt, and occasionally Michael Azerrad, talking about growing up in Aberdeen, living in Olympia, going to Seattle and eventually becoming the biggest rock star in the world,” Schnack said.
By David Wilkins - Daily World Writer
Cobain letter to be auctioned
A handwritten letter from Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain to his future wife, Hole singer Courtney Love, will be auctioned off at Christie's on 12.17, according to Ireland's RTE news website. The letter was written in a hotel room in Sheffield, England, during a 1991 British tour by Nirvana. It will be up for bidding as part of a sale of rock memorabilia.
The letter is listed as "Courtney Love Breakfast Fax" and was written in black ballpoint ink on lined paper.
In the missive, Cobain describes hallucinations that he claims he was having at the time. He also mentions an episode of the British music program, Top Of The Pops, that he had just watched.
Cobain asked a hotel receptionist to fax the letter for him, telling her to keep the original as a souvenir.
Cobain died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 6th, 1994. The long-anticipated Nirvana boxed set, called With The Lights Out, arrives on 11.23. The combined CD/DVD package will feature 68 previously unreleased recordings by the band, as well as never-before-seen home movies, rehearsal and live footage.
Play opens off-broadway
A play inspired by Kurt Cobain has just opened Off-Broadway in New York. It's called On The Mountain, and according to the theater's website, it focuses on a "rock chick" who is haunted by the suicide of a Seattle rock star. The rock chick is raising a rebellious teenage daughter, who's only interested in her iPod. Rumors about the deceased star's lost final song start to swirl and a charming but questionable stranger enters the action and becomes embroiled in a mystery. The play will continue until 03.13.
A DVD on the Nevermind album in the Classic Albums series was under production. The DVD will, despite previous reports, not come out this year but most likely sometime next year. The DVD will chronicle the recording of this landmark album and feature interviews with the principles involved. As far as I know, people that have been interviewed so far include Krist Novoselic, Jack Endino, Steve Fisk, Craig Montgomery, Butch Vig, David Fricke, Everett True, Jonathan Poneman, Gillian G. Gaar and Charles R. Cross. Impressive list! Of course, it is not yet finalized who will appear on the DVD and not all of these interviews will necessarily be used.
Krist's Book Finally Pends:Krist Novoselic is currently on a tour of the US to promote his book, Of Grunge and Government: Let's Fix This Broken Democracy
Kurt Cobain movie in the works at the WB
An original movie about the life of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain is being developed by the WB Network, according to Billboard.com. The WB has bought the rights to Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography Of Kurt Cobain, written by journalist Charles Cross and published in 2001. A screenwriter has already been hired to pen a script for the film, although there's no word on a director or star.
The film will reportedly follow Cobain's life from his troubled youth in Washington state to his emergence as an alternative rock icon with Nirvana.
Cobain's struggles with depression and drug abuse will also be explored, along with his turbulent relationship with wife Courtney Love.
A WB executive said that the network may air a public service announcement about depression after the film.
04.05 was the tenth anniversary of Cobain's suicide. He shot himself to death at his Seattle home, where his body was discovered three days later.
Courtney Love lashes out at Cobain 'murder' writers
Courtney Love lashed out in the New York Daily News at Max Wallace and Ian Halperin, the authors of a new book alleging that Love's husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, was murdered and that Love may have been involved. Love told the newspaper on Wednesday (04.07) that the authors of Love And Death have "opportunistically used the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death to promote their ongoing campaign of greed and exploitation of what remains an unbearable tragedy for us all."
Love, who has been immersed in legal and personal troubles for the past few months, also told the paper that she has hired a forensic accountant "to investigate the fraud and misappropriation of funds" from the Cobain estate.
Love has claimed in various interviews that millions of dollars have disappeared from a trust fund set up for her and Cobain's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.
Monday (04.05) was the 10th anniversary of Cobain's death. Although it was ruled a suicide by the Seattle coroner, theories persist that Cobain was deliberately injected with a fatal dose of heroin and then shot by an unknown assailant.
Kurt Cobain's 80-year-old grandfather, Leland Cobain, says he doesn't think his grandson killed himself either. Cobain told the Calgary Sun, "I think he was murdered, yeah. I have no idea who done it, but I think the cops in Seattle really goofed up. I can't understand how he could have that much dope in him and still lift a shotgun. And I can't understand how come his jaws weren't all broke up and everything from the concussion when it went off and why (the gun) was still on his chest--it should have jumped clear off his chest."
Today marks ten years since Kurt Cobain was found dead
It was ten years ago today that Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was found dead in a room above his garage. He was 27 years old and had apparently died three days earlier of a gunshot blast to the mouth. Police officially ruled Cobain's death a suicide, but as we recently told you, a new book by two investigative journalists presents evidence that he might have been murdered.
In the book, entitled Love & Death: The Murder Of Kurt Cobain, authors Max Wallace and Ian Halperin claim that the murder was staged to look like a suicide, and that Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, might have been involved. They are calling for an investigation into Cobain's death to be opened.
The book claims that at the time of his death, Cobain was planning to leave Love, and that a few days earlier he had booked plane tickets for himself and a girlfriend. In the book, Love's lawyer and close friend Rosemary Carroll revealed that the Cobains were divorcing, and Carroll suggested that Cobain was murdered.
The authors based their evidence on conversations taped by Tom Grant, a private investigator Love hired after Cobain skipped out of a Los Angeles rehab facility a week before his death. Grant's tapes include conversations with Love, Carroll, and others closely associated with Cobain.
Grant told us that he decided to tape his conversations with Love and the others after he discovered that she had lied in her initial phone call to him. She had told him she'd sought his services in order to find out who was using her husband's credit card, but when they met in person at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, she admitted lying and said she was actually seeking to locate Cobain, who'd just left the rehab facility.
Wallace told us on Tuesday that neither Love nor Carroll had threatened legal action over the use of the tapes, although a story in the New York Daily News the next day says that Love had lashed out at Wallace and Halperin, saying in a statement that they had, quote, "opportunistically used the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death to promote their ongoing campaign of greed and exploitation of what remains an unbearable tragedy for us all."
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