I watched this documentary film the other night. My interest in it stemmed from the fact that Kurt Cobain was said to be bipolar and I was interested to hear about his life story.
I would say overall the film was slow but tolerable. It consists of a series of pieced together audio taped interviews with Cobain over about 3 years and although the interviews are slow they are interesting. The video part of the movie, however, is abstract at best. The video is simply a series of photographs of various places Cobain lived throughout his life and some of the photos are so random you have no idea what they are supposed to be adding to the viewing experience.
Overall I am glad I watched it but I would caution not to expect too much from this film. The interviews with Cobain are interesting as you do get an insight into how he saw his life unfold. He claims his life changed when he became manic depressive at 9 years old. However he does not go into detail about this and the interviewer did not pursue these comments. Cobain also talks about his heroin addiction as he got older and his attraction to Courtney Love and why that relationship was appealing to him. From what I can gather, Cobain was addicted during the years of the interview so one has to wonder how this colored his interpretation of things. Nonetheless, they are worth hearing.
Throughout the interviews, you definitely get the impression that Cobain was one that ‘felt too much’ and seemed to struggle with feeling good about himself. He views himself always as an outsider and comes across as sympathetic. One feels the strain of the fact that despite all of his success he could not find happiness within himself. In fact, he states that the more famous he got the less he enjoyed what he did. Unfortunate. You wonder how much the heroin played a role in this mindset and how much was natural.
Anyway, check it out. It’s worth watching – or at least listening to.
2 Comments
Interesting, I would love to hear more questions about his illness and how it affected his life, but with a heroin addiction, it makes things more messy, It just isn’t clear what was driving his life. I wonder if he ever got help for his illness? It does make me sad that even if someone appears successful, at the top of their game, they can still feel hopeless and take their life.
Danielle Steel’s son had bipolar disorder.. she wrote a book about his life (if I remember correctly, he committed suicide in his early 20s). The book is called His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina. It was a very interesting (and heartbreaking) story.