Nick Cave, the walking, shrieking, inside of the man who lost his son, through jumping or falling or flying into the sea that taunts the father and his wife through the windows of their whitewashed home in Brighton.

Directed by fellow Oz, Andrew Dominik (Chopper, the Oscar nominated The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Killing Them Softly), One More Time With Feeling was released on September 8th as a one night preview to the new Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds album, Skeleton Tree.   The album began its journey in late 2014 at Retreat Studios, Brighton, with further sessions at La Frette Studios, France in Autumn 2015. The album was completed and mixed at AIR Studios, London in early 2016, where much of this film is shot.

Extended runs occur this week in some venues.  

Voiceover monologues of clumsy thoughts, the accidental consciousness of creation, the freak out of the situation.  Over piano.  And the performance of the album which copes and spills with the lakes of blood, the clothes caught in the cliff, the inexperienced body,  flowing with the century’s leader of gothic imagery, Nick Cave, the poet, the lyricist, the one with the hair that slicks back across a lifetime of funereal waltzes.

Of course this film was gonna be emo, Arthur Cave fell on 14th July 2015, and no monochrome beauty, strobes, and the gradual reveal of the scale of production, with dollie tracks and full crews of male camera operators surrounding the feminine characteristics of 3D, multi-faceted heavy lumbersome death voyeur lenses, none of that, however gorgeously shot, can assist the soaring build up to the acceptance of giving the pain the name of their son.  And the question – why?  Would you share the intimacy of this sitch with the world?

The film rings with the consciousness of life, of the set up being revealed, of the confusion of the scale of recording in such an public spectacle of a studio.

The Bad Seeds, the kind eyes, the madness of lost pens, and iPhones.

The remaining twin, Earl, disrupting the mercury and starlight with the Lomo shots being shown in colour.  The descent of the spiral staircase to the pity, for a man who’s only solace is his work, and his wife, Susie Bick, making beautiful prairie dresses, endless frills, rippling like the coral which scrapes to the heart of us all.  There’s a rigidity in the architecture of her dresses, the lengths flowing long as the vortex of loss.

The black humour of survival, of the happiness we accept in place of mourning forever but feeling this is a cheat, and we cannot honour the dead enough to satisfy the pure evil of the departed being taken.   Only life can make the apology.  And if you missed the opportunity – there is always guilt.  And there’s a sense of guilt to this.  It’s post-modern goth Hello! / Kardashians, we survive this through art…rather than fall apart.  There needed to be a statement, it’s expected in media times.  Of course it came through music.  The film is an extra plus for all us fans.  The insight to the process, although sadly not shown enough, this is the black winged eagle cut, where the product swoops as death, with all its bullets of blood,  through song.  A release of a film, a release of an album. It is a release of emotion of a time, a place, something past.  Someone passed.  Now that pain is distilled in art.  And it’s out, released, finally.  But as Cave says, it’s all done with a will of impossible permanence.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are: Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, Jim Sclavunos, Thomas Wydler, Conway Savage and George Vjestica. Formed following the break up of The Birthday Party in 1982, to date the band has released sixteen studio albums, starting with From Her To Eternity in 1984. Skeleton Tree,Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ latest release, demonstrates once again that their output remains as bold, explorative and vital as in their early pioneering recording sessions at Hansa Studios in Berlin. One of the most critically acclaimed acts working today, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have sold over 5 million albums worldwide to date. Their influence has been profound and far-reaching with many artists covering their work and citing their influence, and they remain one of the most powerful and exciting live acts in the world. 

http://www.nickcave.com

Kirsty Allison saw the film at the Genesis Cinema in East London with singers Brandy Row and Kelli Ali.  There were performances by Rasp Thorne, and others…