One More Time with Feeling

source: One More Time with Feeling

This documentary focuses on the recording of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' album Skeleton Tree. While recording the album Nick Cave and his family suffered a devastating tragedy with an accident that lead to the loss of their fifteen year old son Arthur. Before Arthur's death Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds had already written and recorded most of the album Skeleton Tree. After his death they went back to the studio to lay out the final recordings and fix up existing tracks. This documentary tells the story one song at a time while Nick Cave and others give their own insights and struggle to wrap their heads around the tragic loss that has permanently changed his family and himself. Nick has always exhibited a bit of humor and honesty when talking about his previous work or his process. That humor is gone. In fact it's told by Nick in a way that's so desperate and searching for answers or meaning that you can almost feel the loss. Nick talks about the effect it has had on his writing and his life in general. How his work and his process no longer seem important to him. How everything in his life seems so insignificant in the wake of the family's loss. The pain can be seen throughout and heard on the recordings. Being most of this album was completed before his son's death it is not addressed in the writing, but can be heard in Nick's voice throughout. Later Nick Cave would write more about his philosophy and how he is deeply effected in the Bad Seeds album Ghosteen. What we get here is a lot of emotion, anger and genuine pain. Where an event that seems insignificant such as finding an old painting made by Arthur seems to be heartbreaking. Being this was recorded so close to Arthur's death there is a lot of pain during the realization that the world still moves forward despite the tragedy. What reviewers may see as "self indulgent" or "pretentious" is nothing more than a family trying desperately to make sense of a tragedy.

Nick Cave reflects on the challenges of making new songs with age and tauma nit giving space to imagination; he ponders the natire of his music and why writes songs. The creative process is shown by introducig us to the team, Warren particularly and through several cool performances. Nice doc.

This is a hard movie to watch if you know what's going on. I knew of the tragedy and was glued to the screen from minute one, as it shows how Nick Cave, his family and his friends react to one of life's most difficult moments. It is a harrowing, depressing and emotional ride. But you have to know what's going on. My companion didn't and she had a totally different experience, especially in the first half, where it just seemed a boring aimless mess of a movie. And this is the film's fault as it doesn't contextualize anything and assumes you know what's going on. So for me and for Cave fans this is a must, but be warned, if you are not familiar with the man's tragedy it will be a dull, confusing and self indulgent experience.

I came late to Nick Cave, but the premise of this documentary piqued my interest soon after its release. Owing to the restriction of the initial 'one night only' showing, I wasn't able to catch it until now. Having watched it on DVD, I can now honestly say I am glad I have done so. Nick Cave is a very interesting man, and he demands a certain respect which is evident in the way this documentary has been made. The use of black and white cinematography is jarring at first, but it soon becomes apparent that this is the only way it could be. The documentary feels intimate, but manages not to be voyeuristic - a triumph by Dominick and his team. There is much here for the Cave fan, the casual viewer and the creative alike.

Nick Cave officially has no brakes. One of the greatest songwriters and artists from the past couple of decades has elevated himself to a whole new level by filming a documentary about his last studio album "The Skeleton Tree", that simultaneously tells a story about his personal family tragedy, the one that no parent should endure in his/her lifetime, a loss of a child. While the other artist talk about total art with no boundaries between them and the viewer, Cave enforces it, without any hesitation or remorse. Literally falling apart in front of the camera, he tells the world about his feelings, trying to cope with them, transform them into music and lyrics, thus making one of the most personal albums of all times. And he does that in a profoundly sincere way, just like any other human being on this planet that is not a musical superstar. "The Skeleton Tree" will move each and every human being, not just the fans of Nick Cave.

I watched this recently and was hugely moved by it. One of the best documentaries on one of the finest artists of the last ten years. It works brilliantly as a companion piece to the earlier Nick Cave documentary; 20000 days on earth, an equally visceral and beautifully crafted film. Why isn't this man awarded the accolades he so rightfully deserves. Moving, gripping and artful. Highly reccomended and essential viewing for anyone who has the slightest interest in music docs, or the process of creation.

To call One More Time With Feeling a great achievement and leave it at that would be to ignore just how unique it is in a vast sea of documentaries. Instead of being about the death of Nick Cave's son and treating that as the primary subject, the film revolves around Nick Cave's creative process and in the meantime how his personal loss affected that process. There are a lot of philosophical ideas going around, so even though the premise and structure of the film is simple, it's a very weight film to experience. Andrew Dominik can create an atmosphere like no other (for an example, see The Assassination of Jesse James) and here he's able to so perfectly capture the kind of thoughtful ideas and imagery that are associated with Cave's internal process. This is a great one and not to be missed.

Painfully ego driven dreck. Oh I feel for the artist who has been through hell, yadda, yadda, yadda. We've heard it all before. It's bad enough that Tom Waits can squeeze another minute out of his schtick and now we have Cave doing his hip alternative and underground version of Waits' game. Or, at least it was "hip" 35 years ago. Jeez. I'll wait for the action figures to come out. Until then, pass.

I wouldn't call myself a Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds fanboy, more like a passer-by who appreciates what he has heard of their works especially Cave and Warren Ellis's works providing film scores over recent years, so perhaps One More Time with Feeling doesn't mean as much to me as it would to long serving fans that have been with the band since their inception. This music documentary that centres almost entirely around Cave in the recording studio working on the Skeleton Tree album is directed by Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik and the Chopper and Assassination of Jesse James overcomes the disappointing reception of his last feature film Killing Them Softly to deliver a beautifully captured documentation of the album making process that also happens to touch upon the tragic loss of Cave's son Arthur that turned his world upside down. There's nothing typical about Cave the musician and Cave the human and Dominik's film follows the mantra to a tee with Cave allowed to provide rambling voice overs and deep life pondering monologues on camera to fill in blanks but it would've been more effective for a watcher like myself had Dominik and Cave himself toned down the ponderous to instead talk more to the everyman as much of the diatribe or deep musings end up becoming a little too much to bare. One thing that never gets hard to bare however is Dominik's directing style (unfortunately the version of the film I watched wasn't in the intended 3-D format) and the filmmaker uses his cinematic senses to great effect as the camera invades and wanders the recording studio. There is also little denying the power of some of Cave and his bands work here with members like the majestical Warren Ellis combining with Cave to deliver some heart-wrenching and soul searching songs born out of unimaginable loss and if nothing else, these musical moments make One More Time with Feeling worth the price of admission. Final Say – An absolute must for fans of Cave and his music, this anything but a by the numbers music doco is an intimate look into the bands creative sensibilities and a sometimes touching portrait of a man touched by grief. If however there was a little less airplay given to various and overlong ramblings, One More Time with Feeling would've been a film for everyone, not just those willing to nod in approval to every little word Cave speaks. 3 forgotten piano chords out of 5