Review of Kurt & Courtney (1998) by Lisa L — 23 Jan 2010

A shame, I think, that many people view this film from the wrong angle. Maybe I'm helped by knowing other work by Nick Broomfield going back way before this and having seen films by him at first back in the 80s. I think people miss what he's actually doing.

He takes his camera, it's on before he even reaches each person, he shows what he stumbles into, he meets it with normal human curiosity and lack of knowledge. He, I think, clearly knows and shows that he doesn't know what the truth is and sees all the contradictions there, and even, maybe, knows he can't necessarily judge Courtney Love or anyone else in any absolute or unshiftable way.

And he doesn't even try to pretend he understands the motives of anyone here, or sees anyone as more reliable that anyone else. He meets the story, and the versions people give, and takes them on board, and is constantly travelling with his camera to see what will come up, and everyone had as much chance as anyone else to show a different side, or explain themselves.

In the end we have as honest a picture as you can get, considering what layers people and stories bury themselves under, of the simple reality of a whole bunch of confused motivations and damaged aspects of people that circle like moths around a flame to this big, ambiguous, rockstar thing.

There's so much to be speculated upon from it, and so much more than the big story of 'did she or didn't she' or 'did he or didn't he'. It's only the most obvious thing that people miss that Broomfield doesn't really suggest either way any answers to those 'loud' questions. There are so many more subtle things teeming under the surface for us to feel about and ask ourselves about. Just as he did in all his earlier films for a quarter of a century until he made this one.

Even his blunter point at the end, about how Courtney Love can stand for freedom of speech, when she threatens and attacks journalists and has corporate pressure on her side to silence them, is just a shallower aside, however valid and interesting in itself, than all the other aspects of it all that he simply stumbles upon and shows us.

And you have to admire the guy's nerve too.