Iconic singer Nick Cave’s autobiographical film feature, 20,000 Days on Earth, will premiere in Malta next month. Ramona Depares interviews directors and long-time Cave collaborators Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard.
Few singers have quite mastered the art of mystery, combined with charisma, in quite the same way as Nick Cave.
Whether working with his now-defunct postpunk group The Birthday Party, with the exceptionally loud Grinderman, or even with The Bad Seeds, (probably his most enduring and iconic collaboration), Cave is always the subject of much controversy.
It’s a controversy that finds its root not only in the music but also in the musician’s own larger-than-life personality. There’s something a bit endearing, yet also a bit sinister, about being Nick Cave.
And now, after a series of books and some roles in film productions, comes his auto-biography in the shape of a feature film.
20,000 Days On Earth, directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, is not what you might call your typical autobiography. Suffice it to say that the interviewer is a psychoanalyst and that Cave’s car plays a big role in the proceedings. The film won the Best Director and Best Editing awards at this year’s Sundance festival.
You have already collaborated with Nick Cave various times before this – how was your working relationship born?
Nick was the first musician to ask us to make a music video, so we directed the videos for the singles from Dig, Lazarus, Dig!. We’ve worked together on various projects over the past few years. The more you work with someone the better you get to understand each other. A sort of shorthand evolves over time.
More recently we produced the audiobook for Nick’s last novel, The Death of Bunny Munro. This film was only possible because of our existing friendship. The trust that was needed was already firmly established.
Can you tell us about the concept behind 20,000 Days on Earth? As directors what did you want to achieve?
We always start any project by defining how we want the audience to feel, emotionally. Very early on we had a strong idea of where the film needed to get to, the feelings we wanted to try and leave you with. We wanted to try and leave you with the same feeling we get from knowing Nick.
His great skill is the ability to see through the smallest of ideas. It’s incredibly hard work and Nick puts the time in.
A lot of your film work has been somehow related to music; would you say that you have an affinity towards this genre?
Music has never really been the subject of our work, but it’s always played a large part in most things we’ve done since we began working together more than 20 years ago.
We wanted to try and leave you with the same feeling we get from knowing Nick
This is your first feature film. Did this entail a change in approach and what were the biggest challenges?
As artists you become very used to the idea that in galleries and museums your audience is basically passing through. You’re trying to grab their attention and if you’re lucky they might give you a few minutes.
So, inevitably, you end up simplifying ideas, trying to strip them down to the core. With this we knew the audience would be with us for the whole time.
Was there ever a difference in opinion between the two of you as directors? And between you and Nick Cave?
We’ve worked together for more than 20 years and our life is full of agreements and disagreements. We resolve disagreements in the same way as anyone else, really. We talk.
Our instincts for what will and won’t work with Nick are now pretty good. We have a good sense of how to get the best out of him, and we enjoy working like that.
It’s about creating situations in which he can be at his best.
How much of it is true biography and how much is fiction?
It’s a very honest film and contains a great deal of truths.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that all the facts and figures are correct or that there isn’t fiction in the film. Nick says that the film is a fiction, but more truthful because of that. The film tells emotional truths.
Unlike with the music videos, this film’s effect depends a lot on Nick Cave being open about his actual personal life – how easy was this aspect to achieve?
Nick threw himself completely into the project. We had a very simple agreement very early on, which was that Nick would try anything we wanted him to, but if it didn’t work, we’d walk away from it.
People have been incredibly surprised by how open Nick is in our film. But it didn’t surprise us at all. He’s actually quite an open person and willing to talk about most things.
Did you consciously set out to create a work that was unlike the traditional format of documentary? What did the process involve?
We set out to make the very best film we could. We didn’t really have points of reference, but the one thing we all agreed on was that we didn’t like fly-on-the-wall type documentaries, films that purport to somehow get ‘behind the mask’ of the subject.
We felt that Nick is every bit the character he’s created; being ‘Nick Cave’ isn’t something he turns on and off. We wanted to reach for something more ambitious and the biggest influence in that respect was the Led Zeppelin film The Song Remains The Same.
Which element is dominant? Visuals or music?
We knew how we wanted the film to sound before we knew how we wanted it to look. Sound is always a fundamental part of our work. We recently made an Ambisonic sound installation with Scott Walker for Sydney Opera House that is experienced in an almost completely black space. It’s completely about the sound.
Whose idea was it to pair Nick Cave with a psychoanalyst and why did you opt for that method as opposed to the usual interview format?
We wanted to find different ways of having Nick speak in the film. We didn’t want to use a journalist, partly because of Nick’s rather chequered history with the media, but also because we didn’t feel it would reveal anything new.
We asked Darian Leader because we knew he’d approach it completely differently. He’s a psychoanalyst and a friend of ours. We had a hunch that it would lead to an interesting conversation and it totally did. They talked for almost 10 hours, over two days.
What was his first reaction upon learning about it?
It was tough to explain to Nick exactly how we thought it would work and he did have some hesitations, but very generously agreed to run with our idea and then threw himself into it wholeheartedly.
What should viewers know before sitting down to watch it?
If viewers need to know something before seeing our film, then we’ve failed. The film says everything we wanted to say.
20,000 Days on Earth shows at St James Cavalier on September 17 and 26. The premiere will be followed by a live performance via satellite from the Barbican Centre, London, by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis and Barry Adamson, plus a Q&A with the film’s directors.
www.sjcav.org