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LOVE HURTS
THE FILM THAT WONDERS OUT LOUD: WAS KURT MURDERED? It's hardly surprising that Courtney Love has waged a legal battle against the documentary Kurt and Courtney. From witholding all copyright of Nirvana tracks to manging to have the film taken out of the Sundance Festival, Love set her sights on making sure that director Nick Broomfield was as hapered as possible in getting his film shown. And why would she want to support this documentary? Adter all, its focus is the theory that her husband was murdered and she was behind his death. Nontheless, Kurt and Courtney is fascinatiog. It opens with Broomfield setting out to discover who the young Kurt Cobain was. It's these poignant scenes that form the heard of the film. The depiction of Cobain is that of a tragic person whose childhood and subsequent life were marred by insecurity and confusion. By far the best interview is with Cobain's aunt, Mary, who allows access to her tapes of a two-year old Cobain singing along to the Monkees. Listening to the chirpy toddler insist, "I can do it myself!" to a family member as he sings, it's difficult to reconcile this happiness with his later self-destruction. Later on, Mary's home video footage of Cobain surrounded by golden haired children playing in the grass is upsetting. Cobain sits isolated from the innocent jou that surrounds him. Mary is about to play a tape of Cobain's first band - at age 15 - when Broomfrield informs the viewer that due to Love owning the rights to all of his performances , the song has been pulled. It's immensely frustrating. Any fan would love to hear it. But do we have the right to hear this music, when both Cobain's widow and mother have decided we don't? Where does the issue of protecting Cobain's privacy start? As a result of her interview with Broomfrield, Mary fought with her sister Wendy (Coban's mother). She later destroyed most of her own tapes in order to ensure that no one would profit from them. Broomfield moves on to talk to a high school teacher with whom Cobain stayed after being kicked out of hom. He speaks with Tracy Marander, Kurt's steady girlfriend for years before fame hit, who shows the filmmaker paintings and sculptures the singer gave her. Alice Wheeler, a photographer frined, tells of the embarassment the singer felt when the pair went riding in a limo. It was the issue of Cobain's 'murder' , however that Broomfrield wanted to address. The filmmaker was suprised at the amount of ill-feeling towards Love he uncovered as he went on. Broomfrield speaks with Tom Grant, the private detective Love hired to find her husband after he from LA's Exodus detox clinic. Grant believes his employment was a front for murder, claiming that no person with the amount of heroin found in Cobain's body could have pulled a trigger (an opinion later invalidated by independent experts). The strangest chartracter of all is El Duce, the leader of a LA punk band who clamis that Love offered him $50,000 to whack her husband. El Duce appears, simply, quite mad. After this, even Broomfield has to admit to that the conspiracy theories sound like hogwash. Out of all the interviews, the most frightening is Love's father, Hank Harrison. Harrison never met Cobain and hasn't talked to his daughter in years but has managed to write two books on Cobain's supposed murder. HE admits to disciplining the young Love with pit bulls, and tells of scavenging Love's teenage poerty out of his garbage bin. More than ten years later, he uses these scraps to support his theories. After watching him rant and rave against his daughter, like Broomfield himself, you can't hepl but be glabbergasted. With a parent like this, who needs enemies? The frustrating thing about Broomfrield''s documentary is that the director oftern fails to push his line of questioning far enough El Duce may well claim to have been offerend cash, but when, how and what was said? When Love comes across as falme and career obsessed, there's little to back it up, and no balance provided. And many of the interviewees who diss her appear pretty dodgy themselves. When Broomfield meets the couple's former nanny, you can't help but wonder who would leave their child in the care of someone so wasted. As a witness to Cobain's demise, the formerjunkie semms almost as reliable as El Duce. Then there's Dylan Carson, Cobin's best friend who purchased the gun used in Cobain's suicide. Instead of asking Carson for insights into the singer, Broomfriend focuses on the conspiracy. Carlson is defensive. Despite his junkie drawl, Carson refuses to play along. "If I seriously thought someone had killed Kurt," he shrugs, "I would have killed them.." Many of the interwees - such as his aunt and former girlfriend give a unique insight into Cobain, but most appear either vindictive against Love or simply unreliable. Still, the tape of Love threatening a tabloid journalist - "I'll haunt you for the rest of your life," she screams, "I'll make you wish you'd never been born!" - paint sa grim picture. Even worse are Cobains own threats - the singer sounding seriously demented when he threated to "snuff" the journo out. Even with all of this, it's Love's efforts to stop the film that paint the most revealing portrait. In the film a caller tells Brookfrield that his co-financiers have pulled out due to pressure from Love's lawys, losing the filmmaker over $600,0000. MTV has also expressed concerns, after Love called the office and "raised holy hell". A theatre in San Francisco was served with legal papers when they announced the film's premiere. A smarter move would have been to let the film go on, withhold the music rights and let the film quietly dissapear. Instead she's fought tooth and nail and as such, brought more publicity to Kurt and Courtney than Broomfield could ever hope for. The climax of the film comes when Love appears, promoting the movie The People Vs Larry Flynt at the American Civil Liberties Dinner. Here is a woman, publically supporting the freedom of the press, who has done everything she can to slience the film. in the past she's has verbally and physically attacked journalists and - in JUICE's own experiences for any interview or photo shoot she does. Broomfield steps up on stage and asks Love why she is there and why she has issued death threats for journalists. He is forcibly removed. It's a great moment. SAMANTHA CLOSE thankyou to EMMS. |
