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Victim of The Night



Joins the ranks of great movies about grief, like Lake Mungo and Don't Look Now. Except this one is mostly musical performances by Nick Cave. So you might have to be a fan of him for it to quietly shatter you.
I been meanin' to watch this.
But I've also been meanin' to watch 200 other movies too.
The struggle is real.






Joins the ranks of great movies about grief, like Lake Mungo and Don't Look Now. Except this one is mostly musical performances by Nick Cave. So you might have to be a fan of him for it to quietly shatter you.
Nick Cave is a big blind spot for me.



Nick Cave is a big blind spot for me.

I kind of pushed his solo music aside for a long time. I was a big fan of his original band, The Birthday Party, which is about as feral and frightening as rock music can get, and I just didn't think of Cave as being this somber balladeer. I had also seen him in concert twenty five years ago at a festival when I was quite young, and I just remember thinking 'who's this old bore', as stupid teens are sometimes known to do when they aren't getting punched in the face by music.


But the pandemic kind of got me exploring his stuff and now I'm in deep. He's a fairly easy sell for those who like similarly minded artists like Leonard Cohen (introspective, sad, lonesome, poetic yet still iconoclastic music). But he's definitely still very dark and is rarely very feel good in his effect. Still, frequently very beautiful stuff though.


For those who can't get on board his music though, only about half of this (maybe even less) is songs. The rest is interviews and fly on the wall moments, almost exclusively revolving around the tragedy that had recently happened in Cave's life (the death of his son). The film wrestles with the idea of what a person, particularly in this case a creative person, does when something like this happens. And, while it always keeps on a brave face, and it never goes into any kind of full on emotional breakdown, there is just this enormous weight that lives on top of the movie. And, as the movie keeps probing, I've seen few films that talk as eloquently and movingly and frighteningly on what these kinds of moments do to a person. And how everything they do afterwards becomes shaped by it.




Nick Cave is quite the philosopher.

He's a perfect mix of the head and the heart. Since watching this I've found myself thinking about things that were said in this movie, and I could almost start crying in the middle of the street or on a bus or at my work.



Victim of The Night
Nick Cave is a big blind spot for me.
Listen to this and see if it does anything for you:




For those who can't get on board his music though, only about half of this (maybe even less) is songs. The rest is interviews and fly on the wall moments, almost exclusively revolving around the tragedy that had recently happened in Cave's life (the death of his son). The film wrestles with the idea of what a person, particularly in this case a creative person, does when something like this happens. And, while it always keeps on a brave face, and it never goes into any kind of full on emotional breakdown, there is just this enormous weight that lives on top of the movie. And, as the movie keeps probing, I've seen few films that talk as eloquently and movingly and frighteningly on what these kinds of moments do to a person. And how everything they do afterwards becomes shaped by it.
Oh, wow. That's awful.

Yes, I think that there is something really powerful when a person whose work and life center on emotional expression grapple with personal tragedy. Have you seen Dick Johnson is Dead?

Listen to this and see if it does anything for you:

I like everything I've heard from him. It's more that I need to get a full album and listen to it while I clean the house--give time for it to sink in.



Boatman's Call and Lyre of Orpheus were the first two albums that spoke to me.


As I've begun to dig, it has turned out all of it is good. I'm very fond of Murder Ballads as well, but that does get fairly grisly at times

I have no seen Dick Johnson is dead, though I know one of my streaming services has it because I remember looking at it once and wondering what it was



I have no seen Dick Johnson is dead, though I know one of my streaming services has it because I remember looking at it once and wondering what it was
It's amazing, is what it is. Go into it knowing as little as possible.



Finally, found the book I used to take out of the library all of the time as a kid, and then lost, and caused a big problem with all the adults as I usually would do








Drawing monsters is the gateway to wanting to become one.
I think Nietzche had a little something to say about that.



I also dressed up as Nietzche as a youngster. Not nearly as much fun.
Little known fact: Nietzche looked exactly like the 1932 Mummy.