‘Who knew Kurt Cobain was that funny?’

-For his new documentary, Cobain: Montage of Heck, Brett Morgen was given unrestricted access to the Nirvana frontman’s archives – and the final edit. Here he talks about the warm, playful side of Cobain the world is about to see.

On the screen, a blond boy blows out his first birthday candle. A minute later he is surrounded by his family at his second birthday party, then his third. We see him dressed as Batman, running up and down a sunlit suburban street. Aged six, he imperiously sits down and pretends to read a newspaper in the garden, acting like the man of the house, while his younger sister pretends to iron next to him. As we see him grow up, the effect is similar to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, but the sudden, tragic ending that we know is coming casts a shadow over the footage.

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This is Cobain: Montage of Heck, the much-anticipated documentary about the Nirvana frontman, which stunned audiences at its premiere at the Sundance film festival in January. NME described it as “a revelatory glimpse into the tormented soul behind Nirvana… the most holistic portrait of a rock icon ever created”, and Rolling Stone called it, “the unfiltered Kurt experience… you don’t just feel as if you’ve gotten to know the man better. You’re left completely emotionally spent.”

Twenty-one years after Cobain’s death, this is the first authorised documentary. The project’s genesis is a film-maker’s dream. Brett Morgen was approached by Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, in 2007 after she saw his documentary about Hollywood producer Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture, and liked his inventive use of archive footage. She then gave him crates and crates of Cobain’s possessions, and let him do the film he wanted to do. 

Morgen was given unrestricted access to the archive: 200 hours of audio, 4,000 pages of diaries, home videos, complete editorial freedom and final edit. As a result, the footage in the film consists of 85% unseen and rare material. After the film was finished, Morgen showed it to Love and Cobain’s daughter, Frances, who is listed as executive producer; neither asked for a single edit.