Oren Moverman to Rewrite and Helm Kurt Cobain Biopic ...
Eric Shapiro - posted New York Press 7/20/2010
According to Collider.com, Oscar-nominated director Oren Moverman is set to helm and rewrite the anticipated biopic of Kurt Cobain. Moverman has established his biopic bona fides with the screenplay for I’m Not There, the Todd Haynes-directed film that was a decidedly bizarre (and un-mainstream) trip through the life and psyche of Bob Dylan (portrayed by no less than six different actors, both male and female). This is good news for Nirvana fans, many of whom feared what would become of the notoriously iconoclastic songwriter in a typical Hollywood film.
Moverman’s rewrite of David Benioff's script draws on Charles Cross’ biography Heavier Than Heaven, criticized by some for including trivial details of Cobain’s life and citing questionable sources. Moverman offered his own two cents
on the subject as reassurance:
“It’ll be raw and chaotic, which is what Cobain’s life was like, but it’s more linear than I’m Not There; it’ll take you from A to Z. People know the shortcut version — he took a lot of heroin, wrote ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, became the biggest rock star in the world, and killed himself. Those known things about him are to me the least interesting.”
So now we know to expect some kind of middle ground between Hollywood drivel (Robert Pattinson reveling in angst like a pre-Vader Anakin Skywalker for two hours) and avant garde pretentiousness (close-ups of Cobain blowing his brains out from different angles or, even worse, Gus Van Sant’s Last Days). Oh, and Moverman hated the atrocious Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, a good sign in and of itself. On the other hand, Cobain’s widow Courtney Love is executive producer and it’s difficult to see how her creative input can amount to anything positive.
According to Collider.com, Oscar-nominated director Oren Moverman is set to helm and rewrite the anticipated biopic of Kurt Cobain. Moverman has established his biopic bona fides with the screenplay for I’m Not There, the Todd Haynes-directed film that was a decidedly bizarre (and un-mainstream) trip through the life and psyche of Bob Dylan (portrayed by no less than six different actors, both male and female). This is good news for Nirvana fans, many of whom feared what would become of the notoriously iconoclastic songwriter in a typical Hollywood film.
Moverman’s rewrite of David Benioff's script draws on Charles Cross’ biography Heavier Than Heaven, criticized by some for including trivial details of Cobain’s life and citing questionable sources. Moverman offered his own two cents
on the subject as reassurance:
“It’ll be raw and chaotic, which is what Cobain’s life was like, but it’s more linear than I’m Not There; it’ll take you from A to Z. People know the shortcut version — he took a lot of heroin, wrote ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, became the biggest rock star in the world, and killed himself. Those known things about him are to me the least interesting.”
So now we know to expect some kind of middle ground between Hollywood drivel (Robert Pattinson reveling in angst like a pre-Vader Anakin Skywalker for two hours) and avant garde pretentiousness (close-ups of Cobain blowing his brains out from different angles or, even worse, Gus Van Sant’s Last Days). Oh, and Moverman hated the atrocious Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, a good sign in and of itself. On the other hand, Cobain’s widow Courtney Love is executive producer and it’s difficult to see how her creative input can amount to anything positive.