科特·柯本：烦恼的蒙太奇

刚看完，感想很多，不吐不快。仅代表个人观点。


烂番茄98%，个人观感完全相反：即使大屏幕放映也看不下去。炫目，丰富，大开眼界，颜值爆表，与此同时loud, exploitive, commercial, manipulated, biased, phony。这部影片简直是柯本本人生前最厌恶的媒体力量与消费时代的活生生写照。

导演有意识地利用Frances和Courtney的支持大肆宣传，言谈间自认为已成死者代言人，却在问答环节搞不清基础事实。有观众问柯本夫妇夺回孩子监护权后，政府部门要求他们定时上交尿检报告，柯本缘何又复吸？政府知情吗，是否有社工介入？导演表示“并不清楚具体是怎样”。

是的，故事的细节并不是导演关注的重点，他真正想打造的是一部五光十色的情绪过山车。这也导致这部2小时15分的电影一刻不停地充满了配乐——各种编曲版本的Nirvana songs，一遍又一遍，熟悉的变调旋律从幼年柯本起就鬼魅般徘徊。电影也充满了motion design, animation，这似乎已成当代纪录片潮流，观众已无法集中精力看一段没有动画效果的引文，无法认真听清截取的采访片段背后是否有其它含义。有观众评价动画如此生动，仿佛令人钻入柯本脑内——没错，只不过对传主私人记忆的模仿如此鲜明和确凿，几乎令人忘却这只是“模仿”，而逝者已无法反驳。

影片展示出强大到可怖的媒体力量。声光电的喧闹组合，疯狂炫目的“时代蒙太奇”，一场一场演唱会，毫不停歇的动画和媒体标题。即使不考虑感官刺激的滥用，纯从叙事层面来看，密集不停歇的刺激也消弭了叙事推进的力量。从中段开始每场演出都在表现柯本的疯狂，类似的演出片段，疯狂的观众，柯本的疯狂，Courtney的疯狂……我几乎在祈求影片快进到他的死亡。

我的反应让我自己也十分奇怪。柯本在片中颜值爆表，他也是我个人青春期男神之一，按理应该希望他的影响能停留得久一点。我想问题出在，观影时我不自觉地在替柯本辩护，因为从根本上来说，Brett Morgen拍了一部HBO和Courtney Love想让他拍的影片。这部HBO特色的露点粗口一应俱全的时髦电影，坐拥纪录片领域不菲预算，创作出几乎完美无瑕的视听盛宴。但与此同时，柯本被代表了，被消费了，而道德的疑点被掩盖在视听盛宴之下，与90年代至今的消费主义文化同流合污，再一次（已经数不清多少次）将柯本的精神遗产五马分尸。而这一切，都打着“向科特·柯本致敬”的名义。

导演自称追求“诚实的表达”，但首先，他对“真实”的定义十分令人困惑。影片中所有叙事声源都没有标明来源，令人分不清是柯本的磁带录音、公共采访还是其他人朗读传记——公共和私人领域的分界几近于无，Courtney和柯本的相处录像（珍贵，但）亲密得令人不安，仿佛被迫闯入了他人的私人领域。而死者私生活领域的一切记录均被拿来无情利用。尤其是柯本的Journal，其中内容不分虚构性“诗作”还是纪实性“日记”，不分日期，一概当作柯本本人的代言，用以佐证本片对柯本的盖棺定论。这令人想到社交网络时代的死者代言：我们经常看到，微博微信上的只言片语，被媒体不假思索地当作逝者思想、行动的合理代言，乃至死亡原因的有效解读。

导演甚至操纵了采访的时间感。每一次采访中看似从白天到黄昏的时间流逝，其实是人工改变光源做出来的效果。但更严重的问题是，我发现我在怀疑每个人说的话是否诚实。Courtney可能在镜头前承认自己怀孕时吸毒，柯本死前出轨吗？尤其考虑这部片子的“委任”特色，虽然布莱特·摩根自称Courtney“并没有操纵影片制作”，但是受她“允许”才得以上映，这一做法从流程上即削弱了影片的公正性。

当然，“公正性”对本片来说，或者说对大多数名人传记类影片来说，实在太过奢侈。但是作为观众，当我们看到柯本的继母指认青春期的柯本试图伤害她的孩子，所以她才把柯本赶出门外，我们真正想知道的是，她的采访可信吗？柯本的父亲在旁边紧张地抓握沙发把手，他真正想说的是什么？柯本本人真正经历了什么呢？这些，导演都一笔带过了。快速的剪辑也并没有给观众留下思考的机会。影片逻辑是，反正动画重演能说明一切，何必质询给了你宝贵采访机会的名人家人呢？

至于Courtney和柯本的婚后生活，甜蜜得流油的、从来没在公众面前展示的家庭录像，被想当然地认作最有利的证词。是的，他们生活一团糟，他们吸毒上瘾无法自控，但看看这多么幸福美满的一对儿啊，多嘴的媒体才是恶人，是他们逼死了柯本，是他是他就是他！

这也许是我恶意揣测，反正导演说了，这部影片里面没有恶人。所以他既没有深挖继母的故事，也没有责备Courtney Love的意思，甚至也没有给同时代的记者、经纪人、朋友更多表达意见的机会，那么我们来谈谈电影结构，戏剧冲突在哪里呢？拍过滚石纪录片的导演，其驾驭史料素材的能力，是本片最值得称道的地方。凭借Journal文字、家庭录像和影音资料，撑起了一部两个多小时的电影。但眼花缭乱的动画、柯本的超高颜值、Nirvana的音乐，是否能掩盖主题的苍白？柯本既在其中，又不在其中，在其中的是他在演唱会上的魅影，剥除了科特·柯本精神内涵的帅脸一张，家庭录像中的萌娃一只。乃至最后死亡字幕一出来，观众只能感受到麻木了。

死者无法辩驳，任由他人对自己的生平大做文章。这是传记最需谨慎地地方，也恰恰是本片导演（故意）疏忽放任的地方。江湖传言Brett Morgen习惯性付给采访对象酬金（尚不清楚本片是否和Courtney Love有利益分成协定），这也是纪录片界争议已久的话题。当采访对象收下钱财，说出“合乎时宜”的、你想听到的话时，纪录片如今残存的真实性更岌岌可危。本片让我想到纯为赚钱的迈克尔·杰克逊影片This Is It：你说它们是“传记类纪录片”，还是作为商业片类型之一种的“音乐电影”呢？

媒体稿，原载于Flux Magazine

http://www.fluxmagazine.com/montage-of-heck-film/

Despite it having been 21 years since his death, the topic of Nirvana’s front man Kurt Cobain has never lost its appeal.When talking about 1990s popular culture, he can’t be ignored and, even now, people are reminded of him whenever an artist dies young.

Last year, one of this generation’s most influential singers, Lana Del Rey, cited Kurt Cobain as her hero, and, in relation to this, stated “I wish I was dead already”. Although Cobain never lacked media attention, both before and after his death, many questions about his life remain unanswered.

Brett Morgen endeavours to answer some of the most intriguing of these questions in his new film Cobain: Montage of Heck. This is the first biopic of Cobain’s life made with full permission from the Cobain family. Morgen has access to never-seen-before home movies, behind the scenes footage of Nirvana’s performances and Cobain’s personal archive of art and tape recordings. He gives us Cobain in unprecedented detail: growing up from an angelic and sensitive little boy to a rebellious teenager, and then a world-famous rock star, heroin addict, loving father and suicidally depressed patient. However, instead of presenting a more human Kurt Cobain, Morgen’s materials accentuate the image we already have.

Part of Morgen’s difficulty lies in Cobain himself. Any biopic of a man who died at 27 will struggle to find evidence of depth and maturity; to add to this, even in his adult years, Cobain did not approach life in a grown-up way. Throughout, it is clear Cobain desperately needed love and attention. But his stepmother’s stories of his adolescence, including mentions of sibling bullying show how he acted in ways that made it hard for his family to accept him. In the latter half of the film, he is shown as a loving father but he is immature and struggles to look after his daughter while battling his heroine addiction. The film is problematic in that it presents Cobain’s inability to fulfill his adult responsibilities as part of his charm, rather than a personal failure, that he is a victim of his celebrity status, and any responsibility – including to care for his daughter – not his own.

Compared to a traditional documentary, Cobain: Montage of Heck is technically innovative. Animation is used to demonstrate the important moments of Cobain’s life: his unsuccessful first effort to have sex, his failed first suicide attempt as a teenager, the time he hid in his rented apartment, writing the music that later came to define the band. The best use of animation is when his doodles and hand-written notes are brought to life. Although all of Nirvana’s hits are played in the film, and footage of live performances are combined flawlessly with animations produced from his notebooks, Cobain’s music is unfortunately not explored further. Perhaps the biggest unanswered question–the source of his unusual musical talent–is barely mentioned, and the inspirations of his most successful songs are not discussed.

The interviews in Cobain: Montage of Heck are revealing in one sense and not revealing in another. Cobain’s mother Wendy O’Connor and his wife Courtney Love talk at length about his childhood and relationships. However, their accounts feel somehow like performances, and lack credibility, not telling us everything of their relationship with Cobain. However, there are some interviewees who do give more, but in their silences. For example, during his interview, Cobain’s father Donald Cobain looks sad and repressed. Sitting on the sofa, he sinks into near total silence and tries to hold back his tears. It is the most touching moment in the film and a pattern that holds in general: the women in Cobain’s life are prominent but exhibitionist, the men either missing or closed and silent. Cobain himself struggles to voice his emotions; he alone finds his voice in music.

If you are intrigued by Cobain as a spokesman of youth, a fighter against the boredom of reality and a musical genius longing to be understood, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck provides everything you might want, from his birth certificate to his first footprint. This documentary doesn’t complicate our image of Cobain; it simply emphasises it, giving us little further detail into his mind and life than what’s on the surface. People expecting to get a better understanding of this everlastingly popular icon might be left unsatisfied.