'One More Time With Feeling' a documentary by Andrew Dominik
Thursday 9th September I went to the cinema to watch 'One More Time With Feeling' and I had no idea what I was expecting. After a while I go to the cinema or buy records blind folded only because I love the artist and have followed their path through the years regardless of what the critics say about it.
Nick Cave is one of a few I buy what he does (either a book a record or a film) Because I know it will be good. To go to a cinema without any idea of what I am going to see without any review it is my mind the best way. You go with no idea or judgment and it is as such a privilege for us to be treated and feel important and the same as the next best payed critic. I don't go to the cinema with a pen and a paper to remember every single line and the write the same as I have seen and make some links with the past... Or read like I have read hundreds of reviews and find that all are the same review. It sucks.
One thing I knew is that it would be hard to watch because of that tragedy of his young son dying whle he was making the record and also because Nick magnifies the feelings I already have in me by 100 in every single record he has made before and three because he is a man with integrity. But, what I found was that feelings in the film were so underplayed and so restrained and because of it it felt so raw and so pure. I know I left the cinema feeling totally moved upside down and emotionally vulnerable and tearful, this though happens with so many of his records but to to this extend, never, that I felt the urge to listen 6music at midnight trying to connect with other listeners what just happened in that film. It was so intense, so brutal so naked so honest and so natural one feels so much and when those feelings are shared, in my experience, are always in a way better maybe?
It wasn't one more time with feeling. It is an abstract departure, experimental but beautiful, To hear him saying that he doesn't live in his heart because he is not there. All the comforting bullshit and the pity all that it;s so much yet all feels so naked and striped to loss and that there is no way out of that. Life and business goes on so it's humour and so it's the singer who sings about pain and stars but this... this is just .... Nick and Warren and Susie and what i saw was the he and his family are loved and they know ;)
After so many years as a cliche goes by an artists stops reading the chords because he not only has mastered those but created some on their own. Nick and Warren can fly high or low and do what they want, even if Nick feels he can't sing it doesn't matter, in my mind he doesn't need to. It's not the voice it's what he has inside that counts. and this is what came out.
When the songs were played between spoken words they were truly sublime, one by one, there was not a single tune in there that was not good. They are all sublime, all perfect. It felt (to me) like every single record he has ever made was here. The humour, the pain, the loss , the love, all all summed up to his humanity where him as a man as a friend as a father and as a husband found a little voice to make something more important than a record. he was himself all the way, you see? Many artists are just than and then they become a parody or they are artists and then they have a life, Nick Cave always sincere and faithful to his believes has become one, an author, reminded me of Goya and his etchings when he lost his mind. There was the painter that didn't paint There it is a man giving a way out all of his madness , everything he has and feels like a rush of vomit without any rational thought and this was genius and so is Nick now.
I loved the film so very much and Dominik 3D suits the film beautifully, perfect (thank you Warren for all your input). You feel part of it inside the darkness and the creative process. Dominik has the gift of making Nick talk and be himself as the film rolls. To see Nick and Susie's humanity and genuine humour .. When Nick say man are two dimensional and women are 3D.... Gotta love the man even more... Little things like he appears in his track suit and talks about personal things so bare you feel you shouldn't be looking and Susie so homely and so lovely...
To have the whole cast at the end as a signature as a companionship, as a family, as a friend, or as a musician, what part they had it was wonderful and the rolling credits, all a labour of love.
Such a gift and an experience I shall never forget. They choose to be happy I am so very grateful.