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20,000 Days on Earth AKA Nick Cave: 20,000 Days on Earth (Blu-ray)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - 4DVD Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (6th April 2015). |
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The Film
 Firstly, an introduction: Nick Cave: singer, songwriter, musician, poet, screenwriter, author, and also actor. Born on September 22nd, 1957 in Victoria, Australia as Nicholas Edward Cave, his music career started in the late 70’s as the lead singer of the seminal post-punk band The Birthday Party (also previously known as The Boys Next Door for their first album) which eventually split in 1983. From the ashes of The Birthday Party, three new bands were formed: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Crime and the City Solution, and These Immortal Souls. Although the latter two bands were active until the early to mid-90’s, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds continue to live on, releasing 15 critically acclaimed albums starting in 1984 with “From Her to Eternity” to the 2013 album “Push the Sky Away”. After more than 20 years since the inception of the band, Cave is the only person to be a constant band member, as members of The Bad Seeds have come and gone and at times returned throughout the years. The Cure is another band of the era that has that distinction, with Robert Smith being the only founding member to still be in of the band. Cave’s distinctively poetic lyrics about love, death, religion, and violence combined with the dark and brooding music of The Bad Seeds, a mix of gothic rock, post-punk, funeral dirge, freakish carnival sounds, and whatever else they could mash in was a style that was very different from the rest of the music world. But Cave was not only busy as the leader of The Bad Seeds, but also as a screenwriter for films such as the debut feature by director John Hillcoat, “Ghosts... of the Civil Dead” (1988), the acclaimed Australian western “The Proposition” (2005), and the Prohibition drama set in Virginia “Lawless” (2012), all directed by Hillcoat. In addition to screenwriting, Cave also contributed to the musical scores of the films, as well as acted in “Ghosts… of the Civil Dead”, and also other films such as “Johnny Suede” (1991), “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (2007), and also played himself in Wim Wenders’ highly acclaimed “Wings of Desire” (1988) along with the members of The Bad Seeds. Cave’s work as an author includes the novels “And the Ass Saw the Angel” (1989) and “The Death of Bunny Munro” (2009) with Cave also releasing audiobook editions and doing live readings with music by Bad Seed multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis. But the music didn’t stop there, as Cave also formed the garage rock band Grinderman with fellow Bad Seeds Warren Ellis, Martyn P. Casey, and Jim Sclavunos in 2006, releasing 2 acclaimed albums. “20,000 Days on Earth” celebrates a semi-fictional look at Nick Cave’s 20,000th day, which translates to 54 years and 290 days to be exact. The film starts off with a bombardment of images on screen, with clips of everything from children playing to performances of Cave in quick bursts: Everything from Cave’s first 19,999 days alive. Cave wakes up next to his wife Susie Bick in his home in Brighton, England and narrates about his usual daily life in his poetic way of narrating, about writing and typing stories and songs. During this day, he is to have an interview with psychoanalyst and author Darian Leader, meet with bandmate Warren Ellis, and go to the archives. In the interview, Leader asks quite a few uncomfortable questions including, “What is your earliest memory of a female body?”, and questions about Cave’s father, who died in a car accident when Cave was 19 years old. Later at Ellis’ house Ellis cooks eel and talks about seeing Nina Simone perform live and about her insane demands backstage, as well as a performance by Jerry Lee Lewis in which Ellis calls the wildest performance he’d ever seen. And finally at the archives, Cave and the curators look at old pictures of himself, his friends, the Birthday Party, and Bad Seeds while he reminisces about his past. Interspersed throughout the day are a few “visits” by people in his car while driving. Ray Winstone (who played in the Cave-penned film “The Proposition”), Blixa Bargeld (former Bad Seed and leader of the German experimental band Einstürzende Neubauten), and Kylie Minogue (who dueted with Cave on the hit song “Where the Wild Roses Grow”) randomly appear in him car talking to Cave about various things. Also interspersed are Cave and The Bad Seeds recording songs from their 2013 album “Push the Sky Away” and a live performance. The film’s directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard previously worked with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds for their music video of “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!” in 2007. Initially, they were commissioned to make a documentary on the making of “Push the Sky Away”, but the documentary started to evolve, eventually having a scripted narrative, written by Cave, mixed with adlibs yet still keeping documentary portions. So is this really a documentary? Is it a fictional narrative? How much is real and how much isn’t? The line is seriously blurred to the point that you really can’t call it either. Cave does lay down some of personal moments and thoughts about himself at times, including the effect of his late father’s death on his life, his fears of losing his memory and also fading away, and possibly the most curious scene for fans of the Bad Seeds, the reunion of Cave and Bargeld in the car, which happened to be the first time the two had seen each other or talked to each other in over ten years. In the scene with Minogue, she admits that just before they had met she had speed read Cave’s autobiography, in which Cave replies that the book “wasn’t the truth”. So how much of this movie is the truth? People who have no idea of who Nick Cave is and have no background on his work will see this film as a pretentious piece of incomprehensible mess. What seems to start off as a linear story about a day-in-the-life-of story suddenly has jumps to the studio setting, ghostly figures suddenly appearing and disappearing from his car. Are they supposed to be part of his imagination, or is it the documentary directors placing some people in there to get him to lay his thoughts out further? And for people not knowing of Cave and his work, those cameo appearances will be very confusing. Basically the film for people who already know about his career, music, and his writing. An addition, a supplement to his other work. People who are expecting something different from the norm will be very satisfied. Note this is a region free Blu-ray disc, but the disc is encoded at 1080i 50hz. This format will not play on many standard region A Blu-ray players.
Video
Shot in digital and framed in the scope 2.39:1 ratio, the picture looks flawless. The codec is 1080i 50hz MPEG-4 AVC. Shot by cinematographer Erik Wilson who also shot Richard Ayoade’a films “Submarine” (2010) and “The Double” (2013), as well as the highly acclaimed "Paddington" (2014), he is proving himself to be one of more sought-after cinematographers in the industry. The use of colors is great, and I can find no fault in the transfer. I am unsure if the original footage was shot in 24 frames per second or 25 frames per second. This Blu-ray has the film in the 25fps framerate and there is no ghosting so this is a proper transfer from a 25fps source.
Audio
There is only one soundtrack for the film, and it is in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Music documentaries should require lossless sound, and the musical performances definitely benefit. Also the minimalist score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis sounds great using the surround channels. There are optional Dutch and English HoH subtitles for the main feature.
Extras
“The Making of 20,000 Days on Earth” featurette (14:52) The featurette has Cave, Forsyth, Pollard and producer James Wilson talking about the genesis and the evolution of the project, includes outtakes, and a lot of behind-the-scenes footage. Interestingly, many of the locations including the archives and Cave’s workroom were sets created for the film. The picture is framed at 2.00:1 and the sound is in English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles including the song lyrics. Bonus Scenes (with Play All function) (33:10) - “Demo Session: See That Girl” (3:07) - “The Interview: Spasmodic Tail” (3:23) - “Studio: Backing Vocals” (1:04) - “The Interview: Blixa Bargeld” (3:04) - “Studio: Jubilee Street Violin” (2:16) - “The Interview: Other Worlds” (2:28) - “Ray Drive: Fish & Chips” (1:31) - “The Archive: Mother” (0:53) - “Rehearsals: Your Funeral… My Trial” (4:02) - “The Archive: Lists and Words” (1:30) - “Rehearsals: Stranger Than Kindness” (3:02) - “The Archive: Bronze Statue” (1:51) - “Live at Koko: Where the Wild Roses Grow” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with Kylie Minogue (4:54) The bonus scenes are a mix of outtake performances on stage and in the studio, deleted scenes from the interview session, and deleted footage from the archive scenes. In the studio sessions, there is prevalent blurry ghosting of the picture, which leads me to believe they were taken from a 24fps source and transferred to 25fps incorrectly. The other footage looks fine though. All the bonus footage is in 2.35:1 with English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles, including the song lyrics. Theatrical Trailer (2:12) The trailer is in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1.
Overall
“20,000 Days on Earth” will not grab any new fans for Cave, but will give people a glimpse into the mind of the man who is idolized by many. But what fans will take as “truth” and what they will take as “fiction” will vary. (Could those last 2 rhyming sentences become a Nick Cave song?) Highly recommended for the fans.
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