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One More Time With Feeling – The Nick Cave doco sort of bio thingy

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Year: 2016
Director: Andrew Dominik

This is movie puts in the spotlight Nick Cave, a man who is struggling in every sense of the word.
Shot in black and white in shaky 3D the movie reminds me a lot of Eat the Document and Don’t Look Back. Ramshackle editing (was there any editing) in and out of focus it pretty much records anything and everything over a period. Footage of Nick and Warren Ellis trying to eke out or resurrect fragments of songs,in a cab, in his house. Stuff with his wife Susie and their surviving son,Earl.

The director is a friend and they worked on the Assassination of Jesse James movie. He asks some direct questions and Nick responds far less abruptly than I’d have expected. But then,as he says, I woke up a different person. The world is the same but my place in it has changed”. Later he says that he used to know how he will respond to certain stimuli/situations but now he has no idea. The early close-up shots , black and white and 3D on this hollow face with big dark bags under his eyes..”what happened to my face”… “those big bags weren’t there a year ago..”

I guess a lot of us wondered how he would be affected creatively. Post Sara Dylan did Blood on the Tracks and Cave acknowledges the role of events in stimulating the creative muse but in the case of trauma, such massive trauma as the unexpected accidental death of an adolescent child, “there is no room for anything else” ….”it’s extremely damaging to the creative process.

Getting back to “work” seems more like therapy than the need to express himself. Not once does he talk about the music or the songs in a positive sense, it all seems a grind. Warren Ellis leads the way “I don’t know what I’d do without Warren” says Nick. He has his words and Warren is trying to find something to hang off them. Much as I like Warren Ellis and his other band the Dirty Three there is a sameness in their musical collaborations these days. Too many strings, too many portentous soundtrack themes. I wasn’t a fan of the last Seeds album and I don’t expect this album to be much good. There don’t seem to be many songs and Nick’s lyrics are getting overly wordy and fruity. I’d imagine a creative writing teacher just going through them with the red pen. But to cut him some slack and Lord knows he deserves it, he is just not in the frame of mind to bother honing and refining.

It’s long , it’s draining, it’s indulgent, it’s remarkable.

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

Unless you are someone who is interested in how people cope with grief and trauma then , to find this movie interesting, you’d have to be a Nick Cave fan.

2

Comments

    • I don’t like Nick Cave’s music at all. Except Push, which I love. So on that basis I’m guessing it might not be a real fan’s favourite.

      • I’m largely in the same boat Gary, and I find that I adore Abbatoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus too, because it has less of the “there was this dwarf, right / look how degraded I am” schtick and more actual songs that you can sing along to. Give it a listen.

        • Funny. I’m a big Nick Cave fan, but my least favourite albums include the ones that the agnostics, broadsheet readers, and other floating listeners always cite as the best – Abbatoir Blues / Lyre Of Orpheus and The Boatman’s Call.

          Push The Sky Away is great, though.

          • Interesting. I have most (hang on a minute….) probably all of Nick’s albums. Abattoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus is my favourite, followed swiftly by Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!. Push is great. The Boatman’s Call has never grabbed me. Neither has Henry’s Dream. I prefer Grinderman 2 to 1. I could go on….

            • Actually I remember now, I did check out Abbatoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus a while ago when I had this conversation with Tigg. Like everything else I’ve heard by Cave, it wasn’t at all the gentle, haunting sound that I like so much on Push. I wonder if that sound is largely the result of Ellis’ input? The only other Cave album I’ve heard that I like is another collaboration with Ellis – the Jesse James soundtrack.

              • I quite liked Warren Ellis’s soundtrack to the Turkish/French film “Mustang”. I don’t have the album or anything, but I thought the music worked well when I was watching the film at the cinema.

  4. I’m kind of dreading this record. The lead off track is magnificent and gruelling at the same time. I suspect it’s going to be a very difficult listen with a lot of emotional heavy lifting. I don’t think it’s going to be mawkish and sentimental, more raw, painful and upsetting, one of those records I admire more than I actually like, or listen to.

    I’ll still be buying it at the first opportunity tomorrow, mind you.

  6. There are a lot of things that might seem prophetic but as he says in the film – take that with a grain of salt.

    It won’t be a diary of his grief.

    BoAtmans Call. – I don’t believe in an interventionist God .. Remarkable. Up there with Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine. Just has you sitting up straight in your chair.

    Henry’s Dream from the classic line up such musical power his southern gothic imagery the force of Blixa and Barry and Mr Harvey – some sentimental toons too.

    First Born – Tupelo , that and Deanna off the follow-up so staggering live.

    Dig Lazarus with those spectacular lights behind them and really great sound – when the Nick / Warren combo really delivered.

    Re Push. I keep thinking of a line

    You know they say it’s only Rock n roll. But I you know you love it deep down in your soul or some thing like that .

    . And I cringe.

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