We’ve seen it many times before, media companies making unauthorized documentaries about our beloved musicians because the family does not want to give the consent for their loved one’s stories to be told.
But it appears that there might be a change in that at least for one musician.
It was recently announced that HBO has landed the first authorized Kurt Cobain film. Cobain’s family has given the cable network the right to tell Cobain’s story with the assistance of many never-before-seen and heard things the late Nirvana singer had in his archives.
The film will be titled Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck and will be directed by Oscar-nominated director, Brett Morgen. This isn’t Morgen’s first time making a film about a musician; he previously had worked on the Rolling Stones’ documentary, Crossfire Hurricane, also for HBO.
Also confirmed to be lending a hand in the making of the film is Cobain’s own daughter Frances Bean. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Frances Bean will be executive producing the film.
Morgen admits in a statement that the film has been a work in progress for the past eight years, with the family giving him the right to see the side of Cobain that he never showed the media.
“Like most people, when I started, I figured there would be a limited amount of fresh material to unearth,” Morgen said.
“However, once I stepped into Kurt’s archives, I discovered over 200 hours of unreleased music and audio, a vast array of art projects-oil paintings, sculptures countless hours of never-before-seen home movies, and over 400 pages of writings that together help paint an intimate portrait of an artist who rarely revealed himself to the media.”
Considering Cobain’s distaste for the media, it’s a little surprising that the family would give the authorization for a documentary to be made about him. But then again, authorized documentary that is correct is better than a defamatory version.
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