Watch Cobain: Montage of Heck For Free

A Major Disappointment

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's a good and interesting movie, but mostly if you're already interested in Nirvana. The animations are awesome and it does a very good job of showing Kurt as a creative genius and troubled kid, raised within a dysfunctional family. It's the home movie footage with Courtney Love and baby that fans will find the most emotional. The movie covers Kurt Cobain from the cradle to the grave, and it's very moving but if you're looking for some expose on the circumstances surrounding his death, you won't find it here.It doesn't deal with his death at all. He always felt like an outsider, it showed in his music. I just wish that he'd lived long enough to find a little peace of mind.

I've been an admirer of Brett Morgen's work for a while, and throughout his films (Kid Stays in the Picture, Chicago 10, 06/17/94), he's constantly displayed a great gift for how to do montages and to expand the form of the documentary, whether it's through voice-over that is (and isn't) right out of a book with corresponding imagery for Robert Evans, or with rotoscoped animation for the trial of the Chicago 7 in the late 60's. So it is logical that if he'd take on a documentary on Kurt Cobain it would be in montage form. The question is is it any good? That of course will depend on how attached you might be to the Cobain "mythos" that has sprouted since (or even before) his death.I didn't have that kind of attachment - I love the band and like his work as a lyricist and musician, but it stops there - so went in to this fairly fresh and only knowing scattered facts about Cobain (all of them petty and none of them really mentioned here). What made the movie work for me is that Morgen sets up empathy with his subject and the audience very quickly, and it's thanks to a treasure trove of archive material. This director had access to so much 8mm home movie footage, hand-held camcorder video from the early 90's, old Nirvana band tapes, audio cassette recordings that Kurt made as a teenager, even a couple of voicemail messages and conversations (if the movie doesn't make you want to check out Over the Edge, it's doing something wrong).But most of all are the journal entries, which is where much of the real meat of Morgen's film comes through. You get a complete purview into who Cobain was, from youth up until just near the end, with these journals and they're full of so many words but also drawings - Cobain was an incredible drawer and artist, and maybe in another life could've been a comic book guy with the sensibility of a more deranged Mike Judge or something - so Morgen uses these to his advantage and leaps off from creating animations from these drawings into animations based on Kurt's words. Possibly the highlight of the first half of the movie comes with Cobain's story of being disaffected, smoking pot, and trying to have his first sexual experience with a messed up fat girl, and it's startling to see how these images unfold.But unlike Chicago 10, the movie's not anchored in this style. Morgen is all over the place at times with his montages, going from behind the scenes footage of music videos to Kurt and Courtney's own home movies. The latter becomes borderline invasive in some way, not too far removed from watching the Tommy Lee/Pamela video from years back, minus the sex (though Courtney Love cant help but show some boob). Perhaps it is necessary to see just what their relationship was like without any media bias; this part is also brought forward with articles that I found fascinating for what could very well have been totally true... or a bunch of BS, and probably the truth was in the middle. They were junkies, they were in love, and the degree to how much they were using colors perceptions for people.Oh, and the movie is with wall-to-wall Nirvana music, from very deep, obscure, super-early-career cuts from punk shows to Kurt recording the Beatles 'And I Love Her' on a little cassette. Morgen has a natural ability to combine images with rapid succession, but I never really felt lost so long as I was paying attention to what was going on on screen. I saw it on HBO, but now regret I didn't get the full visual-aural experience in a theater, since it seems made for that kind of maximum impact.I don't even think Montage of Heck gives a 100% clear view of things that happened for Nirvana or in all of Cobain's life, and yet that's kind of fine - it has enough time to go through the major accomplishments, but it doesn't matter the how completely except that he did it, and at that point now what? But by the end of it I felt like I got enough to see the man in a slightly new way. Before my impression of Cobain was of some cooler-than-thou dude who lived the rock and roll lifestyle too fast. In reality, he was a sensitive dude who loved punk rock and skyrocketed much too quickly to fame. Had Nevermind somehow not been so good, one wonder if he'd still be alive - or what else might've taken him down after a childhood of persona non grata status.

As polarizing and up and down as it's subject, Brett Morgen's unique and labour intensive documentary about Nirvana front-man Kurt Cobain is an experience that will offer highs and lows but is nonetheless a must watch for any long term fan of the musician as documentaries don't get much more intimate than this.Not professing to know much if anything about the life and times of Cobain and his incredible rise to fame, riches and eventual demise, Montage of Heck will not exactly allow the uninitiated to get an exact feel for what drove Cobain and made him tick but it gives us a look into his life like never before with Morgen's access to home video footage, diary entries and archival footage, allowing an impressively vast array of elements that combine together to try and pinpoint Cobain's thoughts and mental processes.Taking inspiration from the man himself, Morgen infuses his HBO backed documentary with an at times off putting erratic nature, the film flirting between visually strong animation, nightmare like diary writings and drawings flashing and coming to life in a psychedelic manner or intimate and previously private home video recordings and photos that offer the film's most telling insights into who exactly Cobain was and what he was like at his most uninhabited, which is nice as Cobain's notoriously cold and uninterested persona in the public makes it very easy for one to not feel care towards a man that seemed intent on walking a path of self-destruction.Cobain's unhelpful habits and characteristics are what holds Montage of Heck back (and a lack of affiliation of how Nirvana came together) and while we can all feel for someone suffering from inward personal issues, nothing is ever made overly apparent as to why Cobain set about a life that could only but lead to a lonely end, even after becoming a father and vowing to walk the line of sobriety and be the parent he so longed for when he was growing up. A tormented and deep thinking soul no doubt, but if there was ever a portrayal that showed Cobain up as not an overly affable human being, it's Montage of Heck.Cobain and Nirvana's influence on pop-culture and music still lives large today and for die hard long term fans and those with keen interest in the life and times of musical superstars, Montage of Heck will be a must watch. For the rest of us more casual music listeners and movie fans however, Morgen's effort is more a curiosity than and out and out must see due to its uneasy tone and tricky central figure.3 uninterested interviews out of 5

I generally like the music of Nirvana, but I don't consider myself a fan of the band. Nevertheless, it's impossible to deny the huge influence they had over the music and popular culture. In the early '90s, the "hair metal" had degenerated into an empty spectacle in which the make-up and the fixative spray were more important than music itself. So, Nirvana appeared as an alternative which changed the face of rock and popularized "grunge" movement, lacking of artifice and with a renewed emphasis on the value of music (even though, like any other movement, it eventually became a victim of the same over- merchandising which has suffocated an uncountable number of musical styles). However, like its title indicates, Cobain: Montage of Heck doesn't pretend to deal with the History of grunge and even less of Nirvana, but with the singer, guitarist and composer who became an icon of a generation. This narrow focus definitely intensifies the vision of the documentary... but at the same time, it makes it feel a bit incomplete, omitting part of the historical frame which would seem indispensable to complete the story. On the other hand, director Brett Morgen fulfilled with his mission, deeply digging into Kurt Cobain's past until getting a detailed audiovisual tapestry of his life. Home videos, personal recordings, public interviews and Cobain himself's copious notes integrate with each other into a narrative which is a bit diffuse on its shape, but not less representative of his tortured existence and the traumas (and vices) which probably contributed to his depression and eventual suicide. The result is simultaneously interesting and painful. Maybe too painful. There are passages of the documentary which, in my humble opinion, cross the line of morbidity and feel tremendously uncomfortable. I appreciate the fact that Morgen decided to depict the raw reality behind the legend, but I think he should have invested less time on that. Speaking of which, Cobain: Montage of Heck includes numerous musical interludes accompanied by animations which bring Cobain's writings and diaries to life. These animations might be a bit disturbing (we couldn't expect less in a biography of this artist), and they are always accompanied by songs of Nirvana and other artists. The problem is that I felt them a bit longer than they should; they are visually attractive and they are useful to separate the numerous interviews and "talking heads", but they tend to extend themselves for more than they should, inflating the running time to 145 minutes. Nevertheless, I found Cobain: Montage of Heck an interesting documentary, even though it will definitely have more value to the fans of Cobain's. Besides, this film renewed my respect for Cobain's legacy and generated me unexpected compassion for his tortured spirit (even if part of that torture was self-inflicted).