Saturday, November 3, 2012

Kurt Cobain: Early Life of a Legend (2004)

If you're looking for any Nirvana music, videos or photos you've never seen before, this is not the film for you.  The video consists of interviews with Kurt's friends from when he was younger, his grandfather, and former girlfriend Tracey Marander.  There is no Nirvana music, so I assume they were unable to get the rights or couldn't afford it.

The problem with this type of film is that unless a person was mentioned by Kurt before he died, you have no idea if the person was even friends with him, or is just jumping on the bandwagon.  Once someone is famous, everyone wants to say they knew him and wants their fifteen minutes of fame.  So many of the stories need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Also some acquaintances would have had a superficial relationship, and no real knowledge of who he truly was as a person. Thus in hindsight, they may misinterpret conversations or make things up based on current known facts.  Let's face it, there are people I hung out with in high school who I considered friends, but we were really more of acquaintances who never had any deeply personal conversations.  They were just someone to do something with, not someone to share my feelings with.

There are conflicting points of view offered, but no new ground covered. In fact, there may not be any new information in this film.  It's funny to see some people say he was happy and hung out with them all the time, and then see other people who say he was miserable.

A huge issue with the film is that based on the cinematography, it was done by amateurs.  It looks like it was done on a consumer grade video camera by available light.  Now that's fine if you know how to frame, know basic lighting, and can adjust your white balance for different types of light, but if not, you've got one bad looking video.  When people are interviewed inside, the color balance is yellow as they're using lamps in the room as the only source of light.  But it's when people are outside that the video is the most brutal.  There is direct, harsh, unflattering sunlight with no regard to where the shadows fall on their faces.  Also the color is extremely washed out in most of the film.

This is recommended for completists or people who don't know much about Kurt and are just starting to delve into his life.


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