Full disclosure, Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” blew up
when I was seventeen and a freshman in college. I remember hearing the record (Google it
kids!) in my friend’s dorm and thinking, “Whoa, this is different.” The band’s
anger tapped into the vein of dissatisfaction of my generation. Kurt Cobain was anointed the spokesman for
all of us and I resented that perhaps as much as he did. Not one band or message can neatly sum up the
unique hopes and challenges of an entire group of people. In retrospect, I appreciate the band and how
it enabled punk to resurface after the heady, hairy, eighties.
This is the first documentary about Cobain I’ve seen and I
had high expectations, hoping his true personality would be revealed in his own
words. (Like Imagine, John Lennon 1988.)
The first fifteen minutes were incredible and included Kurt’s journals brought
to life in a graphic way, including his own art. But unfortunately, this epic beginning broke
down into scripted interviews with people close to Kurt in his formative years.
We learn nothing new in this “Behind the Music” type slog,
which chronicles the bright young kid: his problems fitting in, fame, drugs and
downfall. Kurt’s mother Wendy makes some
unbelievable claims regarding her son’s newfound fame. After hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the
radio, she claims to have told her son he wasn’t equipped to handle this level
of fame. It seems a very prophetic
statement if it were true. The only
unique thing is the family movies of Kurt and later of Kurt and his daughter.
(All of which were licensed for this HBO production, and I believe carefully
edited to show Kurt in the narrative of their choosing. )
The soundtrack to the film was woefully lacking. There were
special “bootleg” or B-sides used outside of the what’s available on Itunes. The band’s biggest hits were woven in almost
as an afterthought. My favorite Nirvana song “Heart Shaped Box” was absent
altogether. (Which leads credence to the theory nothing anti-Courtney made it
into this film.)
The issues of possible mental instability and subsequent
“self-medicating” with heroin are glossed over. We learn his mother took him to the doctor
once at age nine and obtained a diagnosis of ADHD. But Kurt did poorly after
one dose of Ritalin, so his mom decided not to medicate him and never took him
to the doctor again. Instead, the family bounced him around to various
relatives because they couldn’t handle him. It’s an incredibly sad story that his mom is
careful not to take any blame for.
Courtney’s interviews come across as superficial, and it’s
obvious she’s embellishing the truth to make herself look better. She makes two suspect claims: she never
cheated on Kurt and during her pregnancy was as “healthy as a horse” only
having used heroin once. Its rather
undisputed Francis was born addicted to heroin, and Courtney had an affair with
Smashing Pumpkin’s front man Billy Cogan. The film spends a lot of time on how fans
hated Courtney, but there seems to be good reasons for their ire. She was likely instrumental in Kurt’s heroin
addiction and, that as much as the gun, is what killed him. Say what you will about Yoko Ono, but she
loved John enough to get him clean. It’s
heartbreaking to watch Kurt and Courtney as high as kites attempting to care
for their young daughter. If they were
not rich and famous, no way would they have maintained custody of Francis.
The film really pushes the “Kurt was always going to kill
himself” narrative. Artists create, and
sometimes that’s a way to purge the darkness. I don’t believe just because you write “I hate
myself and want to die” means you will kill yourself. Anyone who has lost
someone to suicide knows there are many complicated factors which trigger an
attempt. It’s clear to anyone watching
these videos that Kurt was very sick and needed help. The people closest to him
failed him, maybe because they were high or maybe they just weren’t capable of
seeing it. We’ll never know. But I don’t think suicide is ever inevitable.
The movie ends abruptly after showing the home videos of
Kurt’s last days. It shows a painful slow motion film of a three-year-old Kurt
waving goodbye, that seems to go for cheap sobs. The film is long and the narrative somewhat
lacking. Dave Grohl doesn’t appear in it at all. (Supposedly he was too busy
recording “Sonic Highways” but come on!)
Ye, on the other hand, I have been thinking about the movie all week. So,
there is something undeniably fascinating about Nirvana and their front man, now
that all us generation X’ers have grown up and pine for the angry pulse of our
youth.
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