Nirvana and the memory of Kurt Cobain exist in that horrid netherworld of hip- too old to be new, but too new to be retro. The band's influence on popular music was huge, and Cobain was to become in death a rock and roll folk hero on the level of John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix. But right now, it's just not cool to admit that yes, the band was really, really great.
With the exception of The Sex Pistols, it's hard to think of another band who had such a huge influence with so small a catalog- Nirvana's entire recorded consists entirely of three studio albums, a rareties collection, two live albums (one released posthumously) and a box set of substandard outtakes for hardcore fans.
I give this introduction to defend the idea that Cobain is worth making movies about- he was a serious artist and was a great chronicler of his time- no other audince in any medium captured the horrors of early 90's world as strong as he did.
Nick Broomfield's documentary, however, is not about Cobain as an artist, and is only tangentially interested in him as a man. The movie is mostly about his 1994 suicide and the alleged charge that he was murdered by his wife, Courtney Love. No one contends that Love pulled the trigger (she was documented to be in another city the day he died) but Broomfield manages to find a lot of people who claim that she asked them to kill Kurt, threatened to kill him or, at the very least, wanted to him dead.
I am not giving anything away if I say that responsible journalists have found zero evidence for any conspiracy theories in Cobain's death. He was a heavy herion user, chronicley depressed since childhood and going through a difficult time in his life. He had also attempted suicide once before, during a Nirvana tour in Italy. His death was tragic, but not surprising.
Broomfield is a responsible filmmaker in the sense that he himself come to the conclusion that there is at least no evidence that Courney tried to commit murder. But he spends far too much time on the murder red herring and fails to ask the real question- why do so many people hate this woman?
The most astonishing segment of the film is where Broomfield interviews Love's own father, who has published a book where he contends that Courtney tried to kill Kurt. It is not hard to see that he really hates his daughter- he can barely contain the insults that fly out of his mouth. When we learn that the couple bonded partially over the mutual pain of their abusive childhoods, it's not hard to beleive. We see many, many other people who cannot stand Love's presence and by the end of the film Broomfield himself makes a speech at a ACLU benefit dinner accusing Love of censorship of the media, partially because she tried to prevent Bloomfield to having acess to her and Nirvana's songs to make the film.
Well, I might too if someone was making a film that could potentially accuse me of murder! Aside from spending to much time on conspiracy theories that the director himself admits are phony, the other big problem with the picture is that Broomfield commits the Michael Moore sin of documentary narcissism- he's on camera far too much, and seems personally offended that anyone might not want to appear in his movie. He comes off as a deeply annoying and arrogent.
But, I must concede that he is a strong director. This movie is never boring, even when its pointless. If you want to learn something about Kurt Coban and/or his relationship with Courtney Love, I suggest you consult Charles R. Cross's excellent biography Heavier than Heaven. If you want to watch a lot of weird (but interesting) people lie to the camera, see this movie.