FILM: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

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“Please read my diary, look through my things and figure me out”

–From the journals of Kurt Cobain

kurtcobainmontageartworkRecently shown at the Tribeca Film Festival and airing on HBO, this documentary shows audiences one of the most misunderstood geniuses of our time in a new light. In 1991, when the Seattle based rockers released “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” they had no idea what a life changer that would be for them. Many called Cobain just some junkie who played guitar. WRONG he was a gifted, hypersensitive, hyperactive and relentlessly a perfectionist. He began writing , drawing and making music at a very early age. Punk rock helped him
thru the anger and alienation he felt.

The film is more about him as an artist than a musician. The film explores the amazingly short lived life of a gifted artist who walked the fine line of madness and genius. Director Brett Morgen was granted full access to Cobain’s personal and family archives by former wife Courtney Love and daughter Frances. This included 200 hours of unreleased music and audio, art projects, home movies and 4,000 pages of writing. Thru amazing storytelling, gifted director Brett Morgen grasps material and makes his subjects even more compelling than they already are. He did The Kid Stays in the Picture prior to this.

The documentary gets its name from the circa 1988 sound collage titled “Montage of Heck” that Cobain recorded on a four-track cassette recorder, that is beyond free form and mash ups of song bites, manipulated radio recordings, elements of demos and disparate sounds either recorded or created by him. Sadly we know the ending to this movie, but throughout his life Cobain created compulsively, and that’s what brilliant people do, they have more energy at their disposal than any one can ever fully realize themselves. He produced poems, art work, songs, lyrics of ten manifestations of his own world. He was in his mother’s words, on a collision course with the world.

The documentary will air on HBO starting May 4th. Visual Artist Frances Bean Cobain is the executive producer.

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Cynthia Parsons McDaniel works as an artist in the mediums of video installation, collage and illustration and diorama. She recently attended the National Academy Museum & School in New York City for Drawing and Visual Story Telling and Monotype Printmaking. Her collages were shown in a group exhibition at the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN. Other exhibitions Include CHESTERFIELD GALLERY, ART TAKES SOHO, TRIBECA ART + CULTURE NIGHT, SEEME + SCOPE ART FAIR + MIAMI ART BASEL + CHASHAMA GALA + ARMORY SHOW + GUILD HALL MEMBERS EXHIBITION EASTHAMPTON LI She is represented by the New York Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan. At the American Museum of Natural History she studied with the curator in charge of building and maintaining their DIORAMAS. She has written about design, film and theater for METROPOLIS, ELLE DECOR, IN STYLE, ELLE, DAILY NEWS, FASHION JOURNAL and NEWSWEEK. She has contributed to five books on design and film related subjects. She was nominated for an EMMY while a producer at NBC. She was head of pr and marketing at Cannon Films, New Line Cinema and VP Grammercy Pictures, then special projects editor at IN STYLE and Features Editor New York Daily News. McDaniel then went back to working with actors on MAD MEN, WEEDS AND 30 ROCK and doing personal publicity and creating Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Academy Award Campaigns. She has produced events and handled press including European Film Awards in Berlin, Cannes Film Festival Party at Hotel Du Cap, Sundance and Toronto Film Festival and Elton John's Oscar party, re-opening of the Hall of Mirrors and the Royal Opera House at Versailles and the Bob Hope Memorial Library Ellis Island. The short she produced was shown at both the Tribeca Film Festival and the London Film festival. She recently did props for Boardwalk Empire (HBO) including window displays using antiques She has wrote a one act play about early broadway called ZIGGY and created the props by hand using various antiques and paper techniques. She has worked on over 200 movies as studio executive and worked as unit publicist in ROME BERLIN LONDON BUDAPEST LOS ANGELES PARIS working with some renowned directors including Fellini, Wertmuller, Godard and The Coen Brothers just to name a few. She was the personal publicist for Daniel Day-Lewis, Carrie Fisher, Lauren Bacall, Matthew Modine, Jane Krakowski, Paul Bettany and many other gifted actors. She is a member of National Women Film Critics Circle. She contributes to the national Arts Express Syndicate Radio WBAI RADIO. She is currently writing a memoir. http://cynthiapmcdaniel.wix.com/home/ http://vimeo.com/user51648799/videos http://www.boxdioramas.com/cynthia-parsons-mcdaniel/

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