If it is true that Kurt Cobain’s inability to cope with fame led him to take his life in 1994, then Gus Van Sant’s “Last Days,” a film loosely based on the musician’s fall from grace, would have him turning over in his grave.
More than 11 years after his suicide, the ill-fated musician appears to be making a second run at overexposure. It seemed, after last year’s release of the Nirvana boxed-set broke sales records, that the commercial value of the most legendary band of the ’90s had been exhausted. With “Last Days,” Van Sant seeks to prove otherwise.
If the respectably sized audience in attendance for the Midwest premiere of the film last night at the Mershon Auditorium is any indication, Kurt Cobain can still turn out crowd.
In Van Sant’s fictional retelling of Cobain’s darkest hours, Michael Pitt plays a taller, prettier, bumbling version of Cobain, or Blake, as he is referred to in the film.
Blake fails to form a complete sentence throughout the film, although other characters seem content to carry on conversations with him while he grunts and mumbles responses. The director treats the audience to unending close-up shots of Blake pouring himself Coco Crispies and mumbling to himself while lying on the floor. At one point in the film, Van Sant films a two-minute close-up of a television playing a Boyz II Men video, while Blake lies off-camera in a dress on the floor.
Nirvana fans who might naturally expect insight into the protagonist’s motives for suicide will be disappointed with “Last Days.” Rather than tackle the issue of suicide, Van Sant follows a handful of characters as they lounge in a palace-like home engaging in orgies, listening to Velvet Underground records and avoiding Blake. Cobain’s renowned drug abuse problems are completely sidestepped by Van Sant.
“It was the most boring movie you could make about drugs and suicide,” said Sean Martin, a 26-year-old musician.
Lacking relevant dialogue, plot and compelling acting, the film relied heavily on ostentatious display of uninspiring photography.
“There wasn’t really any plot,” said Gillian Lustig, a junior in painting. “I don’t think it was about him at all.”
Music history sophomore Brian Carnanhan said he came out for the screening of “Last Days” because the main character of the film was based on Cobain.
“I am a big Nirvana fan. I majored in music history because of Nirvana,” he said.
Carnanhan said he liked only a few parts of the film.
“I felt it tried to make it not about Cobain, but it obviously was about him.”
“Last Days” is the 20th picture by Van Sant, who also directed “Good Will Hunting” and “Finding Forrester.”
“His movie about Columbine was the same way,” said David Kasperzak, an art and technology intern at the Wexner Center. “People hated it because it didn’t offer a reason. His movies are more just character studies.”
Although Pitt’s performance was lackluster, the actor wrote and sang the song, “From Death to Birth” for the movie, said Kasperzak. The song, played during a final scene, generated a buzz on the Internet, according to a an online review by Chris Chang.
Whether Nirvana would have titled a song with as trite a name as “From Death to Birth” is debatable. The catchy song alone is not enough to ease the suffering of an audience bored to tears.
“Last Days” neither glorifies nor humbles the ’90s rock icon. Cobain’s character is completely undeveloped, leaving the viewer with no concept of who the central character is, or what he is feeling. From a director’s standpoint, it is daring and revolutionary, but from a viewer’s standpoint, it’s frustrating and boring.
“Last Days,” is a film more concerned about Gus Van Sant’s cinematographic ventures then about the life of Kurt Cobain. Those who are interested in Kurt Cobain could dream up a more interesting and realistic scenario involving the musician during their rides to the theater.
Lantern arts writer Nicole Bolton contributed to this story.
