Kurt Cobain’s long-awaited biopic from director Brett Morgen, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, includes many things that a mother just shouldn’t see.
Morgen admitted that Kurt Cobain would be embarrassed for his mother, Wendy O’Connor, to see some of the scenes from various home videos and other footage, but that it was neccessary for the film to be real and “raw”.
He told Rolling Stone, “When I showed Wendy the film for the first time, I told her there were things that no mother should see. And it was very difficult and painful for me to show her some of the stuff in the third act of the film.”
Yeah, that would be really hard for any mother to see. Especially a mother who lost her son in such a tragic way.
Morgen said of Kurt Cobain’s mother, “I know that she would prefer that not be in the movie, and I don’t blame her. Even seeing him having intimate relations with Courtney — I don’t think Kurt would have wanted Wendy to see that.”
However, he insists that he has his reasons for exposing Kurt Cobain in such a harsh, yet intimate, way.
He said, “But we weren’t trying to bring him down. We were trying to look him in the eye. I didn’t want to humiliate him. I don’t think there has ever been, or will ever be, another movie about an icon that’s this raw or intimate.”
Morgen didn’t just have to get past Kurt Cobain’s mother, he was also confronted when he showed the film to Cobain’s sister, Kim. She was especially concerned about footage that showed Kurt Cobain under the obvious influence of heroin.
He said of Kim’s reaction, “Kim said to me, ‘My brother was very embarrassed about his heroin use. Do you think he would want this in the film?’ And I said, ‘You know, one thing you’ve always told me is that your brother’s worst fear was that he would influence people to do heroin.'”
He added, “And for the last 22 years, Kurt’s been associated with heroin, but nobody’s seen the ill effects of it. I’m not a social documentarian, I’m not trying to make a message film — but I’d like to think that scene could serve as a deterrent. So I said, ‘What if, 20 years after your brother’s death, he is able to save a life? What if one person sees that movie and decides not to do smack? What greater legacy, posthumously, could we give Kurt?'”
That must have been an incredibly difficult thing to pass by Kurt Cobain’s family, no matter how long he’s been gone.
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last month. The film will be released in the UK in April, then in the US in May.
Are you excited to see Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck?
