Rather than being made up of verses, choruses, bridges and solos, documentaries boil down into a collage of archived band footage, unseen additions and new interviews through a chronological retelling of the acts rise to stardom and demise. Music documentaries are a bit like songs in structure. Brett Morgan’s documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, named after the titular’s juvenescent mixtape of Punk Rock, aims to give the most intense, holistic and, perhaps most importantly, accurate portrayal of the conflicted mortal behind the pedestal raised myth. From James Dean to Jim Morrison, Whitney Huston to Ian Curtis, our morbid fascination with what could have been lingers on. Those celebrities who die young and are burdened with immortality are a constant fascination for the masses. In an act of self-fulfilling prophecy Cobain enacted Neil Young’s famous line “it’s better to burn out then to fade away”, a phrase that was not only the epilogue to his life but written on his actual suicide note.
Cobain’s martyrdom was cemented in 1994 when he committed suicide at the age of only 27. World tours, guitar smashing, heroin addiction, number one albums and an enmity riddled marriage to fellow rocker Courtney Love all added to Cobain’s aura as the most chaotic and explosive star since Sid Vicious.
#Define montage of heck full#
A tortured, manic and volatile presence, Cobain lived the Rock ‘n’ Rock existence to the very full in his fiery and fleeting career. The Nirvana frontman was the archetypal angry young man who led the legions of disaffected youths on the early 90s wave of Grunge. While Kanye West’s legitimacy to the title of ‘rock star’ is highly dubious, there’s one man who personifies the term like few others Kurt Cobain. Maybe they can judge Keswick’s largest turnip competition, but certainly not the current state of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Then again, I’m not sure four blokes in waistcoats and wellies inoffensively strumming banjos for the middle class are the ones to anoint the next rock star. If self-anointed God, and prophet paradoxically, Yeezus is the leading rocker of our generation then I think we can all safely agree that Rock ‘n’ Roll is dead, rotting away in an alley surrounded by rusty needles, stale booze and broken strings. Earlier this week heath dwelling faux folk band Mumford and Sons made the bold declaration that Kanye West was “the only rock star left”.
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