Kurt Cobain About a Son: A Gift to Fans, Not Fanatics

In December 1992, Kurt Cobain and rock journalist Michael Azerrad began a series of interviews that would eventually become the beating heart of Azerrad's band biography, Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. For that project, Azerrad recorded over 25 hours of the rock star's musings and reflections, but until pairing with director AJ Schnack to make Kurt Cobain About a Son, had never released the tapes' contents to the public. This film, then, playing at the Varsity for just one week, is a gift to Nirvana fans, the Kurt-curious and grunge scholars everywhere.

But these folks, though fiercely devoted, are smaller in number than you might think. Even in Seattle. And there are some among those few who, in a Kurt-free world, have gone mad with longing, have thrown themselves into the psychedelic abyss of conspiracy-theory lunacy.

The audience for Friday night's 7:10 showing of About a Son, unfortunately, was a case in point. There were all of 30 or so people in attendance, and one of them was fucking crazy.

Because it does truly speak to a generation, About a Son will lull most people over 40 and the majority of folks under 20 into a sound sleep. (It may even bore the tired among Nirvana's fan base; a certain someone we'll soon wed passed out cold. Three times.) That's because the film is slow, simple, and devoid of what you find in other documentaries--interviews, reenactments or arguments. The film isn't really a documentary at all; it doesn't investigate or expose anything, doesn't persuade the audience to feel one way or another. And that's its strength.

About a Son is simply Kurt Cobain's voice, a Steve Fisk/Ben Gibbard score, some thematically related songs (a few that Nirvana covered), images of the Northwest's industry, architecture and people, and vintage Charles Peterson stills. (There are staged sequences of a young actor-"Kurt" finding himself, but they're the weakest ones.) The film progresses--and this is its genius--from Aberdeen to Olympia to Seattle, with Cobain providing a perfectly edited narration of his childhood, struggles to succeed in music, stardom...and bitterness toward stardom. It's an affecting piece of art that sticks in your mind long after having seen it, though not like the repetitive chords and hooks of Nirvana songs. More like the slowly fading wisps of a dream.

At times, it's a dream that haunts you, that hints at ugliness you'd rather not recognize. Cobain saying, more than once, something about wanting to "blow my head off with a gun" is prescient and creepy. It proves, through the convenience of hindsight, that the rock star could not live with stardom, media scrutiny and the never-diagnosed stomach pain that could only be numbed with heroin. He was going to kill himself; that violent punctuation was inevitable.

What did Kurt say about his childhood, his lyrics, his wife, bandmates, drug use and the society in which he lived? Well, we wrote pages of notes and quotes in the dark of the theater... all of which are illegible. And we think that's for the best. Suffice it to say, Kurt said much that wasn't exactly enlightening, but just as much that surprised us. His apparently sublime relationship with Courtney. His fragile relationship with Krist Novoselic. His childhood anger. His adult-but-juvenile advocacy for violence and revenge. His contradictions and internal struggle between constantly "not caring" and needing to "prove myself."

Kurt Cobain was a human being, conflicted and multi-faceted as anyone else. Anyone else with incredible musical talent, culture-influencing charisma, and eventually, the money to do whatever the fuck they wanted. He's like anyone else, but bigger. And that's why, even 14 years after his death, he's fascinating enough to simply hear talk. So no more Kurt quotes from us.