Tuesday 13 September 2016

Film Review: "One More Time with Feeling" (2016).


From the director of Killing Them Softly comes One More Time with Feeling. This British documentary film directed by Andrew Dominik. The film follows the recording of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album Skeleton Tree, in the wake of Nick Cave's 15-year-old son Arthur's tragic death.

In February 2016, principal production, commenced and the entire film was shot over the course of 10 days with a crew of seven people. The film was shot in both black and white and in color and in both 2D and 3D, with two specialist 3D technicians. Dominik originally intended to shoot the film as "a performance based concept", but it became "something much more significant" as he began conducting interviews during filming. The decision to conduct interviews and introduce non-musical elements was "completely improvised" by Dominik during principal production. Interviews with Cave and Susie Bick were filmed in both London and Brighton. Dominik and Cave had an agreement where Dominik could film at any time and ask Cave any question, provided that "if there was anything [Cave] didn't like he could cut it out". Several "emotional" scenes of the film were edited out due to Dominik's "confusion [on] how to deal with the subject" and for fear that they were "exploitative in some way". The portions of the film featuring Cave's narration and voiceovers were recorded on his iPhone after filming was completed. Several hours of his personal recordings were sent to Dominik via Dropbox; Dominik edited the recordings and "built sequences around pieces" of them. Cave both commissioned and financed the film himself in order to avoid conducting interviews about Skeleton Tree and his son's death with the media. According to Dominik, Cave was not expecting to profit from the film's release and "his best hope [was] to break even."

Despite the shagginess, Dominik mostly stays focused on Cave as a reflection of his family, eternally searching for something elusive - something that only came around occasionally. A film that sheds a lot of light on its subject but at times can be a little too blissed out for its own good. You'd like to think that being one of the Seeds had to be more fun than this long and surprisingly dry Dominik documentary makes it seem. Cave's family's honesty contributes mightily to Dominik's portrait of an artist more interesting than some of us may have realized. This insightful documentary finds that there was more to Cave than his much-touted dark punk side. It's a little long, but it is full of great insight that Nick Cave fans will find fascinating. Its trove of unseen treasures is required viewing for fans, but the majority of time spent on Cave and his personal side for almost two hours leaves viewers with as many questions about Nick Cave as when they came in. The film fits easily into Dominik's body of work, as a study of a complex, sometimes angry figure struggling with his contradictions.

Simon says One More Time with Feeling receives:



Also, see my review for Killing Them Softly.

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