Summary
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis transcend the limitations of lockdown London and offer a rare glimpse not just into their creative process, but the transition to finding joy again.
“I’ve retrained as a ceramicist,” explains polymath Nick Cave. He is taking filmmaker Andrew Dominik on a tour of his 18 small statues based on the life of the devil. “Because it’s no longer viable to be a touring artist.” Speaking in London during the height of the pandemic, THIS MUCH I KNOW TO BE TRUE is an attempt to provide fans an intimate gig in the absence of live shows. Yet the final film is so much more.
Dominik, who previously collaborated with Cave and Warren Ellis on The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and the bittersweet One More Time with Feeling, rapidly focuses this new film on the performance. It’s immediately transcendent: as the darker ‘Spinning Song’ segues into the tender ‘Bright Horses’ (both off the 2019 Bad Seeds album Ghosteen), a choir is revealed in minimalist but otherworldly backlighting.
The somewhat stripped back approach, contradictorily multi-layered thanks to Robbie Ryan’s sumptuous photography, allows us to soak up the lyrics while getting to observes Ellis and Cave at work. It’s a privilege if ever there was one. If you’ve ever been to a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds performance, you’ll know it’s a bit like going to a revival with some added jingle jangle from the bells of the chapel. This film is more like being in the front row of a warehouse performance, one where it isn’t unusual to see Marianne Faithful — albeit now dependent on an oxygen tank — turning up for a spoken word passage or two.
The spell is briefly broken about an hour into the film, when Dominik takes us back to Ellis’ apartment. Ellis explains some malady that has happened with his television, as he proudly shows off his copy of Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium. Of course, my favourite moment is Ellis yelling “Holy fucking shit: look at this desktop, Robbie!” It’s a nice Australian beat (from the affectionately labelled ‘Warz’) in the middle of an art piece that could otherwise be taking place in its own pocket of space-time.
Domink allows more of these timeouts between songs in the back half of the film, as Cave and Ellis describe each other’s styles and the sometimes frustrating differences that coalesce into music magic. Cave speaks passionately about the Red Hand Files, a site where people can ask Cave anything (and do) and he responds with a staggering amount of kindness and heartfelt wisdom.
“I’m much happier now than I used to be,” concludes Cave, having found a sense of meaning not directly connected to his work. His fans should be too, as Dominik’s film conclusively demonstrates why Cave and Ellis are even more in tuned with the zeitgeist than ever. Here is film that is newfound joy made tangible.
2022 | UK | DIRECTOR: Andrew Dominik | CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robbie Ryan | EDITOR: Matthew C. Hart | CAST: Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Marianne Faithful | DISTRIBUTOR: Trafalgar Releasing, SXSW 2022 | RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 11-20 March 2022 (SXSW)
