Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

 

I like music. A lot. I listen to it when I’m writing, drawing, cooking, cleaning, running, and in the shower. I can’t sing worth a damn, but you can hear me belt out Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry on Their Own” or dance to Carly Rae Jensen “Run Away with me” on my way to class. I listen to “La Vie en Rose”, “Fly me to the Moon”, “In my Bed” whenever I’m drawing or getting ready for the day.

I have one song by Nirvana on my phone. I listen to “Smells like Teen Spirit” when I’m working on a horror script, so that should tell you something about my taste in music.

After the documentary “Amy” (Amy Winehouse was part of my angsty teenage music scene. I don’t know how many times I played REHAB in my bedroom while I wrote depressing poetry) I’ve been going on a music kick. I wanted to know more about famous musicians and Amy Winehouse’s music seemed so much more to me lately.

So Tony suggested I watch HBO’s “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck”. I was excited, but… it kind of failed for me.

There’s a lot, a lot I like about this documentary. I love the use of old home footage, animation, and the use of his old notebooks.

What did I  hate so much? There wasn’t enough interviews. Remember, I don’t know much about Kurt Cobain except for the one song I play when I’m writing “Smells like Teen Spirit” and the fact he killed himself. I think it relied too much on his music to tell the story.

This could’ve be because of my taste in music, but it didn’t work. In Amy Winehouse’s case, I had a reference point in her music from the interviews of her friends and family and coworkers. In Kurt Cobain’s documentary, I had interviews of his mother, one band member, and his wife. These are the three interviews that stick out to me.This would’ve been fine for me, but the director of this film didn’t use the interviews a lot.

What was he liked to work with? The guy was a drug addict so it couldn’t be easy and he seemed to hate any interviews. He spat on a camera lens during a concert (I almost screamed when I saw this). What was he like as a dad? What was he like after he became famous? Why did he hate to give interviews? No, the small clip of “the music should speak for itself” does not suffice when you have access to a bunch of important people in Cobain’s life.

I swear to god, I didn’t hear anyone talking in the documentary for ten minutes. Probably more.

Why didn’t the documentary talk about his suicide? I was curious about it. I trusted the film maker to go into it.

I think the documentary relied way too heavily on home footage and his music to tell his story. I’ll watch it again, but I think that this documentary wasn’t made for someone who had little to no reference point on Cobain and his music.

It just left a lot to be desired for me.