Ivan Lafayette I saw this documentary for what it is. A documentary. I wasn't trying to find evidence of anything or validation of whatsoever. I lived my teens with Nirvana for the better and for the worse. Many times for the worse. This documentary is not proof of talent, it's not proof of drama per se, it's not proof of anything but a good montage of Kurt's personal and private contribution to the analysis of his own pitfall.Why I rated it 7? I knew already all that was reported in this documentary, but some stuff from his own hand made me go back in time. Travel through the mist of memory. This is not authentic but a collector's item because, and just because, people love collecting stuff. For the remedy of these new teenagers who didn't know Kurt's personal drama, here it is the 257th version of what we all know so far, i.e., a broken family triggers a broken personality, a society living off of prejudices creates an unbearable experience for empathetic kids, drugs are a false remedy and kill you (not eventually - but always). There are many ways of dying, and this is just another one, hereby portrayed in his persona with Montage of Heck. Listen to his music rather than watching drama documentaries, it will do you better.

michaelhirakida Never has there been a more pure, raw, gripping and grotesque documentary as Brett Morgen's Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. A stirring look into the self destructive life of one of rock and grunge's biggest icons. Interviews from Courtney Love, Kurt's Parents and Siblings, Bass Player Krist Novoselic is seen while archive footage, old comics and drawings, intense imagery flashes onto the screen shocking and giving viewers a hard boiled look into the life of this great rock star.Morgen's visual style is seen from using new footage he directed which follows animated sequences and live action film are amazing. The movie also uses footage of inside the human body, gory comics, disturbing drawings such as Snoopy as a Nazi to show the troubled times that Cobain is going through in a most passionate way. Morgen cares about every single detail and doesn't leave anything out and although it can be tiring at times with it's long 2 hour and 25 minute running time, the film never runs out of steam and is as raw as a music documentary can get. No more History of the Eagles or the four hour epic masterpiece Running Down a Dream, this movie is life like. It breathes, it reproduces, it is crazy.Montage of Heck is one of my favorite movies of 2015, and this movie surely will be nominated for an Oscar. 95/100 A

edrx-15144 When Montage of Heck, a Sundance Film Festival award winning movie directed by Brett Morgan, was released, Rolling Stone Magazine called it "the most intimate rock doc ever made". This could not be more true. Frances Bean Cobain was credited as a producer for the project which was terrific news for Morgan. Courtney Love is, quite frankly, a nut case, all of the rights to Kurt Cobain's music, recordings, notebooks, and home movies are in Frances' name. These rights are exercised to their fullest extent in this movie. Many other documentaries focus on one story, told in different parts by people related to the subject. There is very little music or excitement in them. A documentary about Kurt Cobain had better be playing Nirvana nonstop. Not only that, but the film features popular music from his childhood and live performances, and even includes arrangements of songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit. Certain guitar parts or vocals are isolated and played to create certain moods over a scene. The entire soundtrack is quite genius actually. The interviews are told by people that are generally well known to Nirvana fans and the public. Krist Novecelic (Nirvana's bassist) and Courtney Love (Cobain's wife) are amongst several people who contribute to the story, along with Kurt's parents and the muse of Nevermind, Kurt's ex-girlfriend Tracy. Each person has another heartbreaking piece of the Cobain legacy. As stated before though, this isn't the only way the story is told. The home movies and recordings are pieced together in this amazing time line that lay most of Kurt's life out on the screen. Kurt Cobain was a mystery to the world. He told such extravagant stories and lied because, as the voice of Kurt explains, he was bullied as a child and wanted to make himself "cool". First of all, hearing him talk about being bullied possesses such a humanizing effect, Kurt seems like another run of the mill faceless kid, which is exactly what he was before Nirvana. And also, it is such a refreshing way to hear a story. Rather than be told one opinion of the man by people who knew him, the viewer can watch, god like, over the story and form their own opinion. For the parts of his life that were not recorded, Kurt's digital journal was used as the narration for an animated version of 1980's Aberdeen, 1990's Seattle, and everywhere he was in-between. The story is interesting to be heard with an artists rendition to help the viewer visualize the story better. Listening to Kurt's voice on these stories is amazing, while being a little demented. It's a great strategy to get the audience closer, but while some of the audio clips were from interviews, some sounded as if they were recorded journal entries. Almost as if everyone watching the film was reading his diary. Kurt was quoted saying that he never wanted all the fame. People constantly trying to figure him out and get in his head made him uncomfortable all the time. Had Cobain himself seen the film, he probably would've hated it. Every aspect of this poor man's life was too chaotic for a perfectly strong person to handle. Kurt was a sad boy at heart who had a broken brain and a rotting stomach. Every single morning, he would wake up to a swarm of thoughts constantly stinging him like yellow jackets. Which makes Montage of Heck a perfect title for a story about the tragedy of Cobain. Rather than focus on the band and his contribution to rock and roll, Montage brings the viewer into the enigmatic mind of Nirvana's front man. From the beginning where he was a giddy, creative, and loving little kid, to the end where the weight of being the worlds biggest rock star makes him want to taste the shell of a shotgun blast. The legend of Kurt Cobain is a difficult thing to capture, but Montage of Heck does an exceptional job of telling it.

retroguy02 Let me say it beforehand that I've never watched a Kurt/Nirvana documentary before this nor read any of the books about him and I'm not a Kurt obsessive, although I've admittedly read up on his death and admire Nirvana's music and their contribution to 90s pop culture (which I am a fan of).This documentary is a surprisingly humanizing look at him, with pretty much zero focus on the circumstances of his death (only a two-second note about it appears on the screen right before the credits roll) - which was quite refreshing since there seems to be a macabre obsession about Kurt's death, almost to the point of overshadowing what he was like as a person. And that's precisely what this documentary does - bring him from this deified rock legend pedestal to the level of a man, what he was like as a son, as a father, as a brother, as a husband and ex-boyfriend.The interviews with his father, sister (it's the first time his immediate family has agreed to one), ex-girlfriend Tracy Marander and his mom Wendy in particular - along with more familiar faces like ex- wife Courtney Love and bandmate Krist Novoselic - are touching, at times uncomfortable and revealing. They map out a sensitive and talented but vulnerable artist who was a little too conscious of himself.Although there's also performance footage here, Nirvana's music is almost a minor footnote and the focus strictly remains on the man himself. The stylized animations of Kurt's journal entries, drawings and narrations of his teenage years fill in the rest of the details about his youth, although the most effective parts are conveyed by various home videos at different points in his life - including some very intimate and unnerving ones that depict his domestic life with Courtney Love and their daughter Frances.In a memorable scene, Courtney is giving baby Frances her first haircut as a visibly impaired Kurt nods off on heroin while holding the baby. It's a baring, unfiltered look – their messy house and unwashed appearance depicts a chaotic domestic life that's far from idyllic. It also shows that despite the rumours, Kurt and Courtney were very much in love and somehow made naturally suitable partners (despite, or because of, their drug habits). Morgen makes the brave decision of letting Cobain come across as a flawed character rather than a romanticized tragic anti-hero, without denigrating him or making him seem unsympathetic.I was also quite surprised by how meticulously documented virtually all his life (even pre-fame) seemingly was - by his family members' home videos since he was a little child to the way he meticulously preserved his possessions, feelings and thoughts (artistic, mundane to-do lists or otherwise) in his journals and the 'treasure trove' of boxes upon boxes of tapes (among other belongings) that director Brett Morgen used to fill in the details of what went on in his mind. Of course, not to mention the baring, rather unflattering home videos of his personal life with Courtney and his daughter. It's as if he was anticipating the opportunity for legend-status fame and preserved his life for it just in case.This documentary is a humbled, humanized view that goes into the deep end of what made Kurt the person he was, rather than the ideal that he was made out to be. It also provides a fairly unfiltered, at times disturbing window in the mind and life of the 90s' quintessential rock star and so-called voice of a generation - without any baggage of the romanticizing fandom that surrounds his tragic death.