DE FILMFREAK DISTRIBUTIE / REMAIN IN LIGHT PRESENTEERT
20,000 DAYS ON EARTH
een dag uit het leven Nick Cave
in een film van Iain Forsyth en Jane Pollard
Directing Award & Editing Award (World Cinema Documentary) - Sundance Film Festival 2014
Selectie Panorama – Berlinale 2014
releasedatum : 30 oktober 2014
prem ièretheaters: EYE, Film Hallen, M elkweg (Am sterdam ), Film huis Den Haag,
LantarenVenster (Rotterdam ), ’t Hoogt (Utrecht), LUX (Nijm egen), Film schuur
(Haarlem), Lum ière (Maastricht), Chassé (Breda), Forum Im ages (Groningen),
Cinecitta (Tilburg), Cinema Oostereiland (Hoorn), Focus Filmtheater (Arnhem)
PRAKTISCH
RELEASEDATUM
30 oktober 2014
PERSVOORSTELLINGEN
maandag 20 oktober, 13.00, Het Ketelhuis (Amsterdam)
DISTRIBUTIE
De Filmfreak Distributie i.s.m.
Remain in Light
Van Hallstraat 54
1051 HH Amsterdam
020 4864940
BOEKINGEN
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PERS
The Publicity Company
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Natasja Wielandt
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2 SYNOPSIS
Deze openhartige documentaire is een verrassende reconstructie van 24 uur uit het leven van
muzikant, schrijver en artiest Nick Cave. Op zijn 20,000ste levensdag duiken we samen met
hem in zijn archief, vergezellen we hem tijdens een sessie met zijn psychotherapeut en maken
we kennis met een aantal sleutelfiguren uit zijn carrière. Zo gaat hij in gesprek met acteur Ray
Winstone, popster Kylie Minogue en bandleden Blixa Bargeld en Warren Ellis. Het resultaat is
een inspirerende kijk op wat deze man een mythe maakt.
3 SPECIFICATIES
LAND:
Verenigd Koninkrijk
JAAR:
2014
DUUR:
97 minuten
BIOSCOOPFORMAAT:
2.35 : 1
GELUID:
Engels Dolby Digital
ONDERTITELING:
Nederlands
4 HOW IT ALL STARTED...
20,000 Days on Earth is an inventive, lyrical ode to creativity featuring the musician and cultural
icon Nick Cave. The film fuses drama and reality by weaving the journey of a fictional day in the
life of the rock star, with an intimate portrayal of his artistic process. It is the debut directorial
feature film by innovative visual artists Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard and is set to an original score
by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.
Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard have worked extensively with Cave on various projects over the past
seven years and now know him very well. Cave says,
“I’ve always liked their unorthodox approach to things and things on a personal level we have
always gotten on very well. I invited them into La Fabrique Studios to film some promotional
footage for the new record “Push The Sky Away”. As it turned out, in the end, they shot everything and the studio footage was so compelling we decided to expand the idea.”
Forsyth & Pollard recognised this invitation from the resolutely camera-shy Cave was an unmissable, unique opportunity. They started filming, without a plan for what the footage might become, and with unprecedented access began to capture extraordinary moments of Cave’s
creative process.
“Nick’s surprisingly brutal with his ideas, songs mutate at speed and lyrics are slashed and
forgotten” says Pollard of the time spent filming in Cave’s office and the recording studio during
the first half of 2012. “Instinctively we knew what we were shooting had to form the starting
point for a film, so we began to dream up ideas of what that might be”, Forsyth adds.
Next Cave agreed to hand over his notebooks, which proved fertile ground for the filmmakers.
“We were able to trace the transformation of his ideas”, says Forsyth. “We found disparate
phrases which instantly sparked ideas that excited us. This included a calculation to work out
how many days he had been alive for on the day they started recording the album, next to the
5 unusually coined phrase ‘20,000 days on earth’.” Pollard adds, “We began to work with the
idea of what makes us who we are and what we do with our time on earth.” The phrase eventually spawned the opening line of the film and the pair resolved to structure the film around a
fictional narrative of Nick’s 20,000th day. Cave adds,
“This day is both more real and less real, more true and less true, more interesting and less interesting than my actual day, depending on how you look at it.”
Taking the found phrases and ideas from Cave’s notebooks as starting points, the artists began
requesting Cave to write short texts on prompted topics. An edited selection of these was to
form the voice-over backbone of the film. Cave comments,
“The ideas initially came out of them looking in my notebooks. They could see my interests, my
concerns and they would ask me to elaborate.”
“With Nick, we quickly arrived at this shared understanding that what we didn’t like about a lot
of contemporary music documentaries was their presumed-unobtrusive, observational style.
That seeing the ‘real’ Nick Cave would somehow reveal something more about Nick Cave.
Watching a rock star washing the dishes or taking the kids to school might be interesting to
some on a vacuous star-spotting level but it doesn’t intellectually engage you.” Forsyth explains.
By remembering visionary films including Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains The Same, and
Jean-Luc Godard’s One Plus One (Sympathy For The Devil) Forsyth & Pollard began to craft the
visual and structural language they wanted to use. “With these films, the results don’t necessarily match the ambition of the vision – but they tell us that we should never sway from having
crazy, bold intentions.” explains Pollard.
They knew they didn’t want to make a reverential portrait of the artist, nor unmask him to reveal
the ordinary. Instead Forsyth & Pollard wanted to play with rock mythology and harness what is
gloriously extraordinary about Nick Cave.
“The thing that is remarkable, that is inspirational, the thing that affects you about Nick, is his
brain, his creativity, his ability to reframe and shape-shift the normal to make it truly vivid and
moving,” says Pollard. “That’s what we wanted to engage you with. We wanted to portray the
Nick that tells stories, that thinks, that weaves myths, the man who is constantly churning
everything through the mill of the imagination.” Forsyth adds.
6 In 20,000 Days on Earth they are railing against the part of our culture that now normalises genius and talent through TV shows such as American Idol. “There is a strand of the culture that
says almost anyone can do it; be made into a successful star,” says Pollard. “But I want us to
celebrate those remarkable practitioners, the Cohens, and the Dylans and the Caves, who have
carved their own persona and path, who work magic with words and music.”
Up to this point Forsyth & Pollard had worked alone in order to minimise their impact on the
dynamics of the writing and recording sessions. This was not the approach they wanted to take
when filming their fictionalised day in the life of Nick Cave.
“We believed that if we are going to take up Nick’s time, if we are going to take up our own
time, then this needed to matter. It needed to be ambitious.” Forsyth states their intent, “We
took the idea to Pulse Films, brought in Jim Wilson and got the brilliant cinematographer Erik
Wilson on board”.
Was it liberating for Cave to have the pair directing this creative work and for him not to be in
charge?
Cave answers,
“I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. They have a huge amount of energy. They have worked hard
on this film. It has been a privilege to watch people invest so much energy into something like
this. Pulse and Film4 have been amazing as well, in the sense they have stepped back and allowed Iain and Jane the space to do their thing. I’ve worked in film before and that’s not often
the way that is.”
“Iain and Jane have succeeded in getting what they wanted with very few compromises. That’s
been one of the most heartening things for me. It has restored my faith in film! Most films in my
experience are fraught with compromise. That’s the nature of filmmaking. I think they were
given a lot of freedom to allow the film it’s ambiguities, its eccentricities and most of all the time
for scenes to develop and breathe. It has a lovely air and space in it.”
Forsyth and Pollard began talking to London-based production company Pulse Films, because
of their focus on thought-provoking and structurally adventurous films, such as Shut Up And
Play The Hits, about the last days of the band LCD Soundsystem, and docu-drama Who Is
Dayani Cristal? with Gael Garcia Bernal. The project immediately ignited the interest of Thomas
Benski, Pulse founder and 20,000 Days on Earth Executive Producer. “We pride ourselves on
being a place where brilliant filmmakers and great talent can combine to take creative risks in a
way that still serves the market,” explains Benski, “which is why Iain and Jane’s collaboration
with Nick felt like such a natural fit.”
“What has always excited us at Pulse is to tell music stories differently, bringing them to life
through truly original approaches,” says 20,000 Days on Earth producer Dan Bowen. “When we
first starting seeing material they had brought back from the studio there was something so
distinctive about it - it pointed to a clarity of vision and you could quickly begin to see the film
they were imagining. Combine that with Nick as a subject and it was very exciting.”
“The film world is very different to the art world we’ve grown up in, and we’ve been astounded
by the networks of support we’ve met at every level. The team at Pulse, and in particular our
producer there Dan, became unflinching in finding ways to enable us to make the very best film
we could.” Forsyth comments.
Next on board was experienced independent film producer James Wilson, whose credits include Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson and Edgar Wright’s Shaun of
the Dead. As a fan of Cave’s work since the 1980s, Wilson was as intrigued by the subject matter as the filmmakers’ bold approach to it.
Forsyth & Pollard were impressed by the vision of Wilson. “Jim saw in us a version of us we
wanted to be,” says Pollard. “He saw auteur filmmakers, he saw a strong directorial voice”.
7 “They had me at hello,” says Wilson of his first meeting with Forsyth & Pollard in the autumn of
2012. “I love the film-essay form and this was one that explored rich themes – about the importance of art and creativity, and the relationship between artifice and truth – in a wholly original
and cinematic way.”
Wilson had just produced two creatively unconventional films - Under The Skin and Sophie
Fiennes’ The Perverts Guide to Ideology - with Film4 and the BFI, and believed the directors
and their idea had the artistic ambition to which they might also be drawn. “Right now at the BFI
and Film4 there’s an appetite for bold cinema with an authorial stamp on it,” he suggests.
Impressed by a mood reel Forsyth & Pollard had constructed, first Film4 and then the BFI stepped in to majority finance the project with UK private equity firm Corniche Pictures. Pulse
brought on board Goldin Films and Canadian financiers PHI Films to complete the financing
line-up and made an equity investment of their own. Hanway Films is handling worldwide sales
outside the UK, and Cave’s native Australia, which has been
pre-bought by Madman.
Working around Cave’s touring commitments meant 20,000 Days on Earth had to be shot on
an accelerated schedule. “The tail of Nick Cave’s schedule was furiously wagging the dog of
independent film financing!” says Wilson. Indeed, when the film screens for the first time at
Sundance in January, it will be a year almost to the day since principal photography began.
8 CAST
NICK CAVE
SUSIE CAVE
WARREN ELLIS
DARIAN LEADER
RAY WINSTONE
BLIXA BARGELD
KYLIE MINOGUE
ARTHUR CAVE
EARL CAVE
en THE BAD SEEDS:
WARREN ELLIS
THOMAS WYDLER
MARTYN CASEY
CONWAY SAVAGE
JIM SCLAVUNOS
BARRY ADAMSON
GEORGE VJESTICA
en verder met:
JANINE BARRAND (archivist)
KIRK LAKE (archief-assistent 1)
ANDREW TRUTE (archief-assistent 2)
LIZZIE PHILIPS (assistent Darian Leader)
RACHEL WILLIS (assistent Nick Cave)
PETER STONEHM (koerier)
9 CREW
REGIE
SCENARIO
PRODUCER
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
CO- PRODUCER
FOTOGRAFIE
MONTAGE
MUZIEK
GELUID
PRODUCTIE DESIGN
MAKE-UP
MAKE-UP
ART DIRECTOR
Iain Forsyth / Jane Pollard
Nick Cave / Iain Forsyth / Jane Pollard
James Wilson
Dan Bowen
Thomas Benski
Lucas Ochoa
Anna Higgs
Tabitha Jackson
Hani Farsi
Phoebe Greenberg
Penny Mancuso
Paul Goldin
Paul Grindey
Alex Dunnett
Erik Wilson
Jonathan Amos A.C.E.
Nick Cave / Warren Ellis
Joakim Sundström
Simon Rogers
Martina Luisetti
Frédérique Ney
Lucy Haley
10 OVER DE REGISSEURS
Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard met and began working collaboratively at Goldsmiths. They initially
became known for their recreations of highly-charged cultural moments which pioneered the
use of re-enactment within contemporary visual art over a series of major live art commissions
at London’s ICA in the late nineties. This body of work culminated in their critically acclaimed A
Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide (1998), a painstakingly faithful live re-creation of David Bowie’s final performance as Ziggy Stardust, 25 years after the original event.
They have since continued to employ the mechanics of liveness and repetition while shifting
focus to work predominantly with video and sound installation. In 2003 they produced File under Sacred Music a remake of an infamous bootleg of The Cramps playing at Napa State Mental Institute, California in 1978. The artists meticulously re-staged this performance with an audience from local mental health arts organisations, in order to re-shoot each pan, tilt, zoom and
jitter of the original document.
Performance and music culture plays a significant role in their work, and this has led to some
notable collaborations. Their video Walking After Acconci features the young rapper and actor
Plan B (aka Ben Drew), appearing on screen for the first time. Silent Sound, their live performance and ambisonic installation was scored by Jason Pierce (Spiritualized) and when represented at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2007 was described as “one of the fair’s biggest wordof-mouth hits” by the New York Times. They have established an ongoing working relationship
with Nick Cave, with their various projects together including producing the 3D audiobook of his
recent novel and directing a series of 14 short films, Do you love me like I love you.
In 2009 the British Film Institute commissioned a major project, Radio Mania, their first stereoscopic work – a multi-screen 3D video installation with ambisonic 3D sound and a cast including Kevin Eldon, Caroline Catz and Fenella Fielding. Crossing the illusion of cinema with the
presence of theatre the work conjures a psychological, conceptual and physical state between
reality and hallucination.
2011 marked Forsyth & Pollard’s first public solo show, Publicsfear, presented at South London
Gallery and Soon, their first major public commission for the City of Toronto, as well as Romeo
Echo Delta, a radio broadcast re-working of War of the Worlds for the BBC. Their work is collected by museums and institutions worldwide, including the Tate Gallery and the Government
Art Collection. In 2012 they were shortlisted for the inaugural Samsung Art+ Prize.
11 Their first feature film, 20,000 Days on Earth, premiered at Sundance in January 2014, winning
the Directing and Editing Awards. The film, backed by Film4, BFI, Corniche Pictures and Pulse
Films, features Nick Cave alongside Kylie Minogue and Ray Winstone, with an original score by
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis.
FILMOGRAFIE
Iain Forsyth en Jane Pollard regisseerden eerder een aantal mooie korte films, die in musea en
galeries over de hele wereld zijn vertoond:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Jumpers (What Must I Do to Be Saved) (2013)
I’m New Here (2010)
Do You Love Me Like I Love You (2009-2011)
First Kiss (2010)
Run for Me (2008)
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (2007)
Walking after Acconci (Redirected Approaches) (2005)
Anyone Else Isn’t You (2005)
File under Sacred Music (2003)
12 OVER NICK CAVE
Cultuuricoon Nick Cave wordt geboren in een klein dorpje in de Australische staat Victoria. Na
een tumultueuze jeugd begint zijn artistieke carrière met een opleiding aan de kunstacademie.
Daar vertrekt Cave echter al binnen twee jaar tijd om met vriend Mick Harvey de band The Boys
Next Door op te richten. Rond dezelfde tijd raakt de nieuwbakken zanger verslaafd aan heroïne,
een gewoonte die hij pas jaren later zal weten op te geven.
De band die werd opgericht als The Boys Next Door behaalt zijn eerste undergroundsuccessen als The Birthday Party. De bandleden verhuizen naar Londen en brengen tussen
1980 en 1982 drie albums uit, waarvan Prayers on Fire als de belangrijkste geldt. In 1983 gaat
de band uit elkaar. In Berlijn richten Cave en Harvey een nieuwe band op, Nick Cave and the
Bad Seeds. Hun debuutalbum, From Her to Eternity, ziet het daglicht in 1984.
Cave verhuist opnieuw, ditmaal naar Brazilië. Aldaar werkt hij aan wat zijn debuutroman
zal worden. And the Ass Saw the Angel verschijnt uiteindelijk in 1989 en wordt lovend ontvangen door de internationale pers. In 2009 verschijnt Cave’s tweede roman, The Death of Bunny
Monro.
Intussen blijven The Bad Seeds albums opnemen. In 1993 keert Cave terug naar Londen en
drie jaar later brengen hij en zijn band hun tiende en tot dan toe meest succesvolle album uit,
Murder Ballads, met bijdragen van onder meer Kylie Minoque, PJ Harvey en Shane MacGowan.
In de daaropvolgende jaren blijft Cave albums opnemen, zowel met The Bad Seeds als met zijn
nieuwe band Grinderman, die het in 2013 na twee albums voor gezien houdt.
In datzelfde jaar brengt Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds met Push the Sky Away een van
hun best ontvangen albums ooit uit. In Nederland wordt de plaat door de verzamelde muziekpers uitgeroepen tot beste album van het jaar.
Ook duikt Cave steeds vaker in de filmwereld op. Zo levert hij het scenario voor The Proposition
(John Hillcoat, 2009), een film die internationaal lovend ontvangen wordt. Hij werkt opnieuw
samen met Hillcoat voor Lawless (2012), waarvoor hij wederom het scenario levert.
Voor beide films componeert Cave ook de muziek, samen met “Bad Seed” Warren Ellis.
Ook componeren zij de score van The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert
Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2006).
13 OVER PUSH THE SKY AWAY
Centraal in 20,000 Days on Earth staan de opnamen van Push the Sky Away, het vijftiende studioalbum van Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, dat werd uitgebracht in 2013. Het is het eerste
album van de band waaraan Mick Harvey, een van de oprichters van The Bad Seeds, niet
meewerkte. Barry Adamson, ook een “Bad Seed” van het eerste uur, nam zijn plaats is. Adamson werkte voor het eerst sinds Your Funeral... My Trail uit 1986 weer aan een Bad Seedsalbum mee.
Push the Sky Away werd lovend ontvangen door de internationale muziekpers. Wikipedia
maakte de balans op:
Push the Sky Away was acclaimed by music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average score of 81, based on 46 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim." Allmusic rated
Push the Sky Away three and a half out of five stars and reviewer Thom Jurek said the
"songs contain simple melodies and arrangements that offer the appearance of vulnerability and tenderness [but] it is inside this framework that they eventually reveal their
sharp fangs and malcontent." Writing for The A.V. Club, Jason Heller described the album as "oppressively hollow minimalism is both its biggest drawback and its greatest
strength", noted the lack of "chemistry" in Mick Harvey's absence, and gave it a B- grade. BBC Music writer James Skinner referred to the album as "certainly a far stranger,
subtler record than that last Bad Seeds outing" and "an LP as weighty, compelling and
brilliant as The Bad Seeds have ever produced." Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune called
Push the Sky Away "an album without any shocking turns" but said "that 'tiny, trembling
heart beat,' as Cave calls it, starts to sound louder with each listen" in his three out of
four star review. In his review for The Guardian, Dave Simpson awarded the album four
out of five stars, described it as "funeral-paced songs and stripped-down music that
calls to mind Leonard Cohen fronting James Blake minimalism" and drew comparisons
between the album and The Boatman's Call (1997).
Los Angeles Times' reviewer Randall Roberts said Push the Sky Away "is not a work to
be appreciated casually. Cave delves into a meandering, meditative world that rarely offers the kind of hooks or tethers that dictate toe-tapping singalongs" in his three out of
four star review. Writing for the NME, Jenny Stevens described the album as a "majestic
and desolate masterpiece" and noted that the band "merges the experimentation and
freedom of their side projects with Cave's most tender songcraft", rating the album nine
out of ten. Pitchfork Media rated Push the Sky Away eight out of ten and reviewer Stuart
Berman praised its "foggy reveries built upon ominously rumbling bass lines, twitchy
14 rhythmic tics, and hushed-voice intimations", adding "it may not erupt with same force
as the Bad Seeds' stormiest gestures, but the underlying menace fuelling it remains."
In his three star review for Rolling Stone, Joe Gross said Push the Sky Away "is full of
tiny sounds—plinking guitars, pulsing bass [and] lazy subtle drums." Writing for Slant
Magazine, Mark Collett stated: "subtle, sprawling, and often achingly beautiful, Push the
Sky Away is a late-career masterpiece from an antipodean force of nature" and
summarised that it was "an album of thrilling darkness pierced by moments of brilli
ant light." USA Today' reviewer Edna Gunderson wrote that the release "may be more
spare, somber and haunting than recent collections, but Cave's dark menace, devilish
wit and yarn-spinning voodoo compensate for a lack of guitar bluster."
[bron: Wikipedia]
15 DE INTERNATIONALE PERS
‘Incredible. Puts most music films to shame. So inventive and inspiring’
TIME OUT
‘Staged, stylized and weird as fuck, it's the rare rock film that raises more questions than
lighters’
ROLLINGSTONE.COM
‘It's gratifying to see a film as ambitious and out there as “20,000 Days on Earth” pin down a
subject as elusive as Cave. Don't miss it’
ROGEREBERT.COM
‘Deftly balancing the ordinary and the uncanny’
TIME MAGAZINE
‘The most sophisticated rock star biog ever…beautifully shot..in one visually explosive sequence, he waxes lyrical about the time he met his wife Susie Bick…a powerful moment in a remarkable film’
SIGHT AND SOUND
‘Simply astounding, razor sharp, dynamic’
VARIETY
‘Inspiring for those interested in the creative process or anyone searching for
their muse’
INDIEWIRE
‘Gorgeous and haunting’
‘An unclassifiable and frequently spectacular documentary’
SALON
‘Probably best music doc I've ever seen’
‘So much more than music. Beautifully made’
SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
16 ‘Funny, candid and philosophical’
BOSTON HERALD
‘A dazzling visual and aural assault that assembles images of Cave’s life from birth to the present’
PASTE MAGAZINE
‘Decisively breaking the music documentary mould’
‘A film for anyone interested in the creative process’
‘Enthralling, provocative and..surprisingly moving’
EVENING STANDARD
‘It embraces a mystery and protects it, and it’s thrilling to behold’
TIME OUT
17