This Much I Know to Be True

This is a documentary that follows a man called Nick who is an amateur ceramicist. It's wonderful that forgotten hobbies like ceramics are finally getting mainstream attention. I am a big fan of arts and crafts. I used to make erotic art out of egg cartons, but these days I mainly focus on sellotaping bins together.

Sporadically through the film, Nick entertains us with a bit of karaoke. He has quite a good voice! Not sure if he'll ever make it as a singer, but it's lovely to see him have fun with his pals. To be honest, these musical bits take up quite a lot of the runtime and the main focus of ceramics seems to get lost along the way. Still, it's an interesting portrait of a burgeoning artist with a lovely soundtrack to boot.

A performance documentary capturing songs from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' last two albums together. This is mostly performance, but with the occasional behind the scenes interlude. It helps if you're interested in Cave and interested in listening to him talk. Even if you're not that into what he's talking about. He's a compelling narrator. If you just like the music though, fear not that's what this delivers best. Cave is a dark philosopher, drawn to religion, icons, the devil, people. Some paranoid idiots would probably think this makes him dangerous in a 1980s we must save the children kind of way. To hear him talk though, he's all about understanding, compassion and connection. He's brutally honest, open and sincere. Talking about finding himself in a happier place, with meaning to his life. It's all laid bare. The songs are captured in a grand sparse room, the pair, some backing singers, some lighting, but never more than is needed. It echos the delicateness of the songs from Ghosteen especially. It's all very pure. It's never going to replicate the magic of being in a room with Cave and Ellis, but the fact that it gets close is testament to director Andrew Dominik's work. For me though, as much as I love Cave, I adore Ellis. It's the interview clips with him that feel revelatory. He's untethered, a wild force of artistic beauty. The magic they conjure between them though is incredible and getting a sense of how that comes to pass is wonderful. The Ghosteen songs are largely slower, sombre sounding, mournful and hopeful. There's a catharsis in the music, I'm sure for Cave, certainly for me and it's interesting to hear them collected with some of the more swaggering songs from Carnage. A must see for any music fan.

The litmus test for a "concert film" is the music. I like Cave's music, but I'm not a "fan". Did the film make me want to go out and buy his newest long player? No.

And this is a big problem for the film. Three-quarters of it is music. It's a high quality performance, no doubt, and Cave (alongside Warren Ellis) clearly remains very engaged with his art. But the music is admirable rather than exciting.

Five minutes of The Birthday Party in Wings of Desire is a much better concert film experience than this.

The performance is filmed very artfully, in a bare performance space (an old church?) filled only with lights and camera dolly track. It's certainly good to look at.

Far and away the best parts are the documentary scenes, in particular the one at the start where Cave talks about his ceramics, and the appearance of a fragile yet determined Marianne Faithfull.

I think I prefer One More Time With Feeling by a hair, but that's probably because Skeleton Tree is one I prefer over Ghosteen. Still a very good album, and this accompanying documentary is very good too. Bright Horses and Galleon Ship are particularly beautiful songs, and two of the best in Cave's discography.

Also gotta say that Warren Ellis seems like such a cool guy, and I always forget how important he is for what I tend to think of as Nick Cave's unique sound. Of course Nick Cave is hard to forget about. He's still crafting beautiful, unique music so late into his career, and I feel for him and his family these past few years after what's happened. Can't even imagine how such tragedies would feel, and you really feel the grief in many of these songs, making for a moving documentary.

Nick Cave has had a long and remarkable career in music; but this programme is essentially just extended footage of him performing his songs with the camera as his audience. There are a few words of interview, and a little scence setting, but this is not the story of his life, or even any portion of it; and the songs themselves are all new ones. Personally, I love 'The Boatman's Call', and I have a friend who's a great admirer of his early, punkier sound, but his recent work feels pretentious and overly solemn to me. If you're not a hard core fan, this may be something to have on in the background.