Andrew Dominikhas two new films releasing this year. The first one isBlonde, his long-awaited adaptation ofJoyce Carol Oates’sMarilyn Monroenovel starringAna De Armas. His second film, which recently premiered at The Berlin International Film Festival, is a companion piece to a documentary he made in 2016 about musiciansNick Cave,Warren Ellis, and their band The Bad Seeds. The new documentary, entitledThis Much I Know To Be True, explores the recording process for Cave and fellow band member Warren Ellis on the two most recent studio albums,GhosteenandCarnage. In the case of the first documentary, entitledOne More Time With Feeling, Dominik again followed the recording process for Cave and his band during the creation of their album,Skeleton Tree, except with one tragic difference.
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As the band was nearing the end of their recording sessions for their new album, Nick Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur died from an accidental fall. Sessions were halted for two weeks to give Cave and his family time to grieve their loss. When recording sessions began again, Cave and Ellis reviewed their completed material and decided to revise some of the lyrics to their songs. These lyrics deepened the themes of loss and personal grief that were already prevalent. Shortly after, Cave commissioned Dominik to direct a documentary where Cave could explain the writing and recording process after Arthur’s death, and so he could avoid addressing the album’s context in media interviews. This isn’t the first time Cave, Ellis, and Dominik have collaborated together, Cave and Ellis composed the score for Dominik’s film,The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. But Dominik had a difficult task ahead of him: how does one communicate the deepest of human emotions felt in the wake of an unspeakable catastrophe?
For Nick Cave and his family, the most tragic part of losing their son was how sudden it was. There was no gradual decline in health, just one spin of the globe, and he was no longer alive. In grappling with his grief, Cave also tries to communicate the drastic shift that something like this does to a person overnight. People change, but oftentimes, people are aware of the ways in which they are changing. It’s hard to comprehend just how much Cave and his family had their change thrust upon them. For an artist like Cave, change can be an inspiration, but it’s hard to see any silver lining in the shadow of unbearable grief.
There are many ways in which Dominik illustrates Cave’s grief visually and aurally in his documentary. Beyond the interviews conducted with Cave and others, the most apparent artistic choice is how Dominik strips the film of color. Visually, vivid colors are often a stand-in for a lively atmosphere. However, filmed in black and white and in both 2D and 3D, Dominik demonstrates how life has been drained from Cave’s world. No more hues, only shades of black and white exist in a grief-stricken world.
Likewise, Dominik’s camera embodies the inescapable thoughts swirling in Cave’s mind. During the recording of the song “Magneto,” the song from which the film’s title is taken, the camera circles Cave in an endless loop as he sings about love and loss. As Cave sits almost motionless at his piano, the camera acts as his thoughts and emotions as they bombard him from all angles. The inability for the camera to remain still reflects the restlessness of Cave’s mind struggling to process his profound grief. A similar effect is achieved with the inclusion of Cave’s own voice recordings from his iPhone. Recording outside the sessions as thoughts popped into Cave’s mind, Dominik’s inclusion of Cave’s disembodied voice deepens the personal element of the film as the audience can hear the thoughts echoing inside Cave’s head.
The unease of the camera also acts as a translation for Cave’s shapeless songs. Cave and his band made a name for themselves based on their storytelling abilities to quickly sketch intricately-felt characters and spin entertaining tales. But after their 2013 album,Push the Sky Away, the band began moving towards the avant-garde with more improvised lyrics and unconventional time signatures. The result of this shift creates a sonic quality to their newer albums that feel rawer and more primal than their past work. In terms of Dominik’s craft for the documentary, the film blends interviews, Cave’s voice recordings on his iPhone, and recording sessions in a way that is much more experiential than structural. The documentary maintains a very ethereal atmosphere as it follows Cave and the others. It exists in a delicate medium between structure and amorphousness, between expression and repression.
Through the interviews with Cave and others, Dominik portrays the differing effects of grief on a person. In creating the documentary, Dominik translates Cave and his family’s grief cinematically, but he also taps into something that Cave may not have intended to reveal. In Cave’s case, it’s clear that his inherent need to create as an artist is demanding that he make something out of the emotions he feels. There’s a tension present in the film between Cave taking advantage of the deep emotions he feels and properly allowing himself to grieve. And Dominik’s mix of recording sessions with personal interviews strikes that balance perfectly, never having the film feel exploitative.
In the face of unspeakable tragedy, Dominik and Cave somehow manage to find the words to express themselves. Whether it’s through the restless camera, Cave’s disembodied ruminations, or the structureless presentations of image and music, the film doesn’t exactly find catharsis but proves empathy can penetrate even the deepest of emotions. Cave and his family’s lives may have been drastically altered overnight, but that doesn’t mean that the people they have become are completely unrecognizable. Healing takes time, a lot more time than it can take to lose someone. The film’s tone likely won’t be present in Dominik and Cave’s newer documentary, but Dominik’s brilliant direction inOne More Time With Feelinghandles the material with a perfect amount of sensitivity.
