Montage of Heck, the biopic about Kurt Cobain, has been stirring up a storm of critical acclaim (98% on Rotten Tomatoes for example), but it seems not everyone is entirely happy with the film.
Buzz Osborne, of The Melvins and an extremely close friend of Cobain’s, has now come out saying “90% of Montage of Heck is bullshit”. Them’s fighting words for sure, but based on the fact that Osborne has known Kurt for so long, we do have to give it a little credence.
Buzz served up some real talk in a new essay on The Talkhouse about the flick, Kurt’s infamous relationship with Courtney Love, and that the man behind it all – Brett Morgen – just didn’t really catch on to what he claims is a load of shit from Cobain and Love. Check out the whole essay here, and feast your eyes on a fiery little excerpt below:
“I went to high school with Kurt and was a big part of all the Nirvana guys’ lives before and after they became famous. I thought very highly of Kurt, Krist and Dave. We were good friends when they were all flat broke, long before they could buy big houses and cars with credit cards. My band played with Nirvana at their last show. I was there for the beginning and I was there for the end, for the very good and the very bad.
First off, people need to understand that 90% of Montage Of Heck is bullshit. Total bullshit. That’s the one thing no one gets about Cobain — he was a master of jerking your chain.
For instance, I know the whole “I tried to fuck a fat retard” story is complete bullshit. Not even an inkling of truth. That’s too good a story to have gone this long without me hearing about it, especially if, as he suggests, the girl’s father freaked out about it at the high school. In that small-town shit-hole, exciting news of that nature would have been common knowledge before the sun set. It never happened. And the trying-to-kill-himself-on-the-train-tracks story is bullshit as well. It never happened either. There it is, though, told in a recording of Kurt’s own voice so it must be true…right? Wrong.
Kurt also told me there was absolutely nothing wrong with his stomach. He made it up for sympathy and so he could use it as an excuse to stay loaded. Of course he was vomiting — that’s what people on heroin do, they vomit. It’s called ‘vomiting with a smile on your face.'”