“Please read my diary, look through my things and figure me out”

–From the journals of Kurt Cobain

Recently shown at the Tribeca Film Festival and airing on HBO, this documentary shows audiences one of the most misunderstood geniuses of our time in a new light. In 1991, when the Seattle based rockers released “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” they had no idea what a life changer that would be for them. Many called Cobain just some junkie who played guitar. WRONG he was a gifted, hypersensitive, hyperactive and relentlessly a perfectionist. He began writing , drawing and making music at a very early age. Punk rock helped him
thru the anger and alienation he felt.

The film is more about him as an artist than a musician. The film explores the amazingly short lived life of a gifted artist who walked the fine line of madness and genius. Director Brett Morgen was granted full access to Cobain’s personal and family archives by former wife Courtney Love and daughter Frances. This included 200 hours of unreleased music and audio, art projects, home movies and 4,000 pages of writing. Thru amazing storytelling, gifted director Brett Morgen grasps material and makes his subjects even more compelling than they already are. He did The Kid Stays in the Picture prior to this.

The documentary gets its name from the circa 1988 sound collage titled “Montage of Heck” that Cobain recorded on a four-track cassette recorder, that is beyond free form and mash ups of song bites, manipulated radio recordings, elements of demos and disparate sounds either recorded or created by him. Sadly we know the ending to this movie, but throughout his life Cobain created compulsively, and that’s what brilliant people do, they have more energy at their disposal than any one can ever fully realize themselves. He produced poems, art work, songs, lyrics of ten manifestations of his own world. He was in his mother’s words, on a collision course with the world.

The documentary will air on HBO starting May 7th. Visual Artist Frances Bean Cobain is the executive producer.