Monday, May 4, 2015
TV Tonight: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
Posted By Bill Frost on May 4, 2015, 2:15 PM
What's new on the tube tonight:
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (HBO) Documentary: Brett Morgen's doc Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck arrives long enough after Cobain's 1994 suicide (sorry, no cover-up conspiracy theories here) that it seems fresh—more importantly, this deconstruction of The Man, The Myth, The Grunge Superstar is fresh, like nothing that's come before it. Besides the usual Behind the Music mix of childhood home movies, Nirvana concert footage and talking-head testimonials, Morgen uses stylized animation to illustrate the journal passages of a young Aberdeen, Wash., weirdo who didn't fit in anywhere—as well as Cobain's own artwork and appropriated pop-cultural imagery—all mashed up into a narrative almost as dizzying as the mixtape the documentary is named after. The kitchen-sink visual technique Morgen used for 2012's expansive Rolling Stones doc Crossfire Hurricane, surprisingly, works just as well in the intimate inverse, shattering the decades-fostered grunge-cartoon image of Cobain and replacing it with a real human being. Courtney Love-haters will be glad to see that she, however, doesn't come off nearly as well—and Montage of Heck has her (and daughter Frances Bean Cobain's) stamp of approval. Just as curious, present-day Dave Grohl is absent, making this the only rock-doc in recent memory without his participation.
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