Interview. AJ Schnack.

"Taped conversations between Nirvana front-man Kurt Cobain and music journalist Michael Azerrad form the attention-grabbing center of director AJ Schnack's otherworldly documentary Kurt Cobain About a Son," writes Steve Ramos at indieWIRE. "The true highlights of the film, more than Cobain's never-before-heard commentary on life, death and the price of sudden fame, are Schnack's artful technique, pinpoint editing, clever animation and beautiful collage of Pacific Northwest landscapes and everyday Seattle people."

Now at the main site, Francine Taylor talks with AJ Schnack about his unique approach to a tragic story, the differences between documentaries and nonfiction films and what he hopes audiences will take away from Kurt Cobain About a Son.

Updated through 10/5.

Updates, 10/4: "Kurt Cobain About a Son doesn't add much to the picture many of us carry around in our heads (and hearts) of its subject, and it certainly can't begin to explain why this wondrously talented, delicate creature decided to shoot himself in the head with a shotgun in early April 1994," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Hearing Mr Cobain talk about shooting himself with a shotgun, as he does several times in the film, doesn't add a thing to our knowledge; it's painful to hear, even now. Mostly, it feels intrusive and disrespectful."

But Camille Dodero finds the film "deeply moving" and talks with Azerrad for the Voice: "When we were making decisions about the film, looking at cuts, my mantra was: 'Don't break the spell, don't break the spell.' It's supposed to be this immersive, dream-like, associative experience."

IndieWIRE interviews AJ Schnack.

Updates, 10/5: Kurt Cobain About a Son "will likely appeal to the type of completist who covets alternative takes of previously released songs or collections of obscure B-sides," writes Kevin Crust. "The film often feels like a ghost story narrated by the ghost himself and works best when it is visually more impressionistic."

Also in the Los Angeles Times, Mark Olsen talks with AJ Schnack: "It was while attending the influential Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in North Carolina with About a Son this past spring that he really began to understand the way in which his online persona was beginning to bump up against his real work."

"About A Son may not let in anybody who doesn't already have one foot in Nirvana's doorway, but those people are invited in fully, to experience the contradictions and preoccupations of a man whose music defined his era," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club.

"It's the kind of approach that could really only be carried by a figure of fascination on the level of a Lennon or Dylan," writes Steve Appleford, who talks with AJ Schnack for the LA CityBeat.

Posted by dwhudson at October 2, 2007 3:28 PM