'Kurt and Courtney' overdoses on hatred and death

Courtesy of DGC "Kurt and Courtney" examines the death of grunge rocker Kurt Cobain.

By Ed Sholinsky
Daily Arts Writer

"Kurt and Courtney" filmmaker Nick Broomfield ("Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam," "Fetishes") proposes a theory throughout his documentary about the death of grunge icon Kurt Cobain. But even to the most casual viewer, it's obvious that Broomfield's agenda is far from presenting the facts of Cobain's suicide (or murder as the film speculates) in a balanced manner. Ultimately, "Kurt and Courtney" is a hate film aimed directly at Courtney Love.

Broomfield makes quite a bit out of the fact that Love has attempted to block the film at every avenue, to the point where she refused to let him license Nirvana's music. Not that you can blame Love, since the film nearly slanders her. Even when the film doesn't accuse her of sending a hitman after Cobain, "Kurt and Courtney" blames her for driving him to suicide.

"Kurt and Courtney" starts off fairly innocuously, however, tracing Cobain's childhood through interviews with his aunt and high school principal who took him in for a year. From there, though, Broomfield steers the documentary in a direction to tell a story that "some people have not want ... told."

As he traces Cobain's roots, Broomfield delves into Love's past in a tabloid fashion, interviewing people who are obviously out to hurt her. Broomfield interviews Love's father (a former manager of the Grateful Dead who lost custody of Love when she was five for allegedly giving her drugs, something both he and Broomfield fail to mention), an ex-boyfriend that resents the fact that his career never took off like Cobain's and various other of Love's enemies.

Broomfield interviews Love's father, Tom Grant - a PI she hired to find Cobain days before he was found dead - and two gossip journalists who convince him that Cobain couldn't have killed himself. The finger is of course pointed at Love, despite the fact that there's very little evidence to back up their claims.

Love's father, who comes across as a psychotic media whore, loves his time in front of the camera, as he recounts Love's hellish childhood where he admits to psychological and physical cruelty. And, despite the fact that he lost her at age 5, Love's father claims special knowledge about her mind, while hawking two books he's written about Cobain and Nirvana.

Also, despite the fact that the film presents evidence contrary to PI Grant's theory of Cobain's death, "Kurt and Courtney" does little to look into his past to see if he has a bone to pick with Love. Instead, Broomfield leaves the evidence out there without confronting Grant about it.

But this is typical of Broomfield's approach to "Kurt and Courtney." He delights in confronting people who don't believe that Cobain killed himself - including Cobain's aunt and his best friend, Dylan, who the film subtly implies might have had something to do with Cobain's death - while professing his own professional objectivity.

The most amusing (and despicable) part of "Kurt and Courtney" is Broomfield's attempt to connect Love to a perverted death metal lunatic, El Douche, who claims Love offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. El Douche, of course, passed because he thought the offer was a joke, but knows the man who did it. His friend Allan did it, but El Douche says he'll let the FBI deal with that. And since El Douche passed a polygraph-maybe the reason they're inadmissible in court-Broomfield hangs on his every word.

Perhaps it's Broomfield's willingness to accept all these stories about and Cobain's death and Love that makes this film so horrible. Even after Broomfield admits he doesn't believe that there was a conspiracy to kill Cobain, he still goes on gathering personal attacks on Love, searching for some way to implicate her in Cobain's death.

Broomfield does this by interviewing a nanny for Cobain and Love's daughter, Frances, who worked for the couple for a month before Cobain's death. While the nanny doesn't believe Love had Cobain killed, she states that Love drove him to suicide. Since this woman is obviously a mind reader, Broomfield takes her word as gospel.

The film then switches gears, abandons references to Cobain's death and turns to attack on Love's personality. It gets to the point where Broomfield pretends to be a journalist at an ACLU awards ceremony to interview Love and accost her on camera.

Aside from his tabloid approach to the story, Broomfield's documentary is painfully boring. Broomfield constantly relies on shooting scenery through the windshield of his car. There is nothing impressive about Broomfield's approach to "Kurt and Courtney" - it's neither blissfully biased like Michael Moore's documentaries, nor truly objective like Erol Morris.

The only thing "Kurt and Courtney" does prove is there was one murder: Love's character was definitely assassinated in the film.

11-12-98