Learning from a Rock Star’s 20,000th Day
20,000 Days on Earth
November 20 & 22
Oklahoma City Museum of Art Noble Theater
415 Couch Drive in OKC
(405) 236-3100
okcmoa.com/see/films/
20,000 Days on Earth defies easy categorization. We are taken on a journey through the life of iconic, post-punk musician and polymath Nick Cave in what, on one level, documents the everyday sights and sounds of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds laboring their latest album Push the Sky Away in its incubation stage. But, it is also layered with surreal dramatic scenes where Cave plays an abstraction of the character and the real person “creating a world,” narrating the script from afar.
We dive deep into the rich world of tragic, visceral beauty that Cave has spent a career creating rather than looking for some glimpse of truth behind the music. Cave is very aware that the rock star is an invention. It is a role played on a stage and it is all we ever really have the right to know anyway. In contrast to the drug-addled interviews I have seen from his youth, where interviews were an act of masochism, it is a treat that an older, more agreeable Nick Cave is finally giving more insight into his process and what makes him, as an artist, tick.
The scenes sometimes feel like intentional allusions to familiar themes within his vast body of work. Throughout the film, Cave visits with a therapist where we are taken deep into Cave’s mind to explore his obsessions with weather, an idealized woman with black hair and a pale face, his interests in the deviants of society, and his complicated relationship with religion. By the end of the film I felt I had been provided a road map to the fictional world of his music, film and prose.
But, his philosophy on the creative process itself seems to be the real subject of this unique film. He claims all songwriting to be “counterpoint.” The wrestling of two forces to see what kind of transformation will occur is integral to his process. In a revealing scene he explains that losing his memory is his greatest fear. These memories, he says, define who we are. They have served as the actors within his musical narratives, morphed into something outside of reality through his blending process. It is evident that the retelling and mythologizing of memories are a crucial ritual to his existence.
And he holds a great deal of reverence for live performance, where he is able to live within and share this world with the audience. Intimacy with the crowd seems vital to his own experience. I recall seeing a show where Cave stopped mid-song to kick out the security staff at a Dallas venue because they were prohibiting the audience from approaching the stage. At first, I thought this was something he did for the fans, but after hearing him talk about how he views performance as a communal affair, I think this was for his own benefit. He engages with the front rows directly, often singling out a person to make a personal connection.
In the film, he speaks in awe of seeing jazz legend Nina Simone during a time when she came across as an unhinged and menacing presence on stage. We also hear musical collaborator, Warren Ellis talk about the wild, animated “Killer” Jerry Lee Lewis turning a dull opening into a riotous show with his chaotic energy. These shows stick out in the mind of Cave and the fellow members of his Bad Seeds. From the violent music of the Birthday Party that often caused fights at shows to the jarring imagery of songs like “Stagger Lee”, there is no doubt that they see the transformative power of the terrifying mask.
Cave gave directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard room to make the film they wanted while maintaining a lot of control over how he is portrayed. There is a lot of honesty and this does not ever feel like the kind of rise, fall, and triumphant return thematic arch a lot of bio-pics have given us.
There are three scenes where Cave rides with important people from his past. We hear the reflections of actor Ray Winestone, from Cave’s film The Proposition speaking about age. In Cave’s reaction you feel the somberness of someone who is aware of his fragile mortality and limitations. There is a candid scene with longtime Bad Seed member Blixa Bargeld explaining the reasons for abruptly quitting the band in 2003.
Cave chauffeurs fellow Australian singer Kylie Minogue through the rainy streets of his adopted home of Brighton, England. Her presence in the back makes her feel like a distant but precious memory from his past. Kylie recorded on the song “Where the Wild Roses Grow” on the Bad Seeds album Murder Ballads in 1996. She is surprisingly forthcoming in her fears of being forgotten, giving her own perspective to the ongoing theme of the fragility of memory.
But, beyond being a trip through Cave’s life, I find a lot of value can be taken if viewed as a film about being an artist. We see the steps taken in turning fragments of ideas into inspiring works of art. Perhaps we can all find some lesson for our own creativity from this quasi-fictional 20,000th day in the life of Nick Cave.
