Main Cast: Michael Pitt, Lukas Haas, Asia Argento, Scott Patrick Green, Nicole Vicius
Release Year: 2005
Country: US
Run Time: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Filmmaker Gus Van Sant wrote and directed this meditation on stardom and its costs, inspired in part by the life and death of rock musician Kurt Cobain. Blake (Michael Pitt) is the leader of an influential alternative rock band who has unexpectedly won a large degree of fame and fortune. Depressed and unsure of what to do with himself or his success, Blake wanders about the run-down mansion he calls home and the visits the woods nearby. While a handful of friends live with Blake, he prefers to avoid them, as they often seem more interested in money or help with their music than in his friendship; meanwhile, Blake is also confronted by a handful of fans, his agent, and a gentleman who sells advertising space in a telephone directory and has no idea who Blake is. As Blake goes through the motions of his day, he tries to decide what he should do next, and what might finally free him from his ennui. Shot and edited in the same languid, low-key manner as his films Elephant and Gerry, Last Days also stars Lukas Haas, Asia Argento, Scott Green, Ricky Jay, and Harmony Korine. Kim Gordon of the band Sonic Youth also appears in the film, while her husband and bandmate Thurston Moore was a consultant for the musical score; both were friends of Kurt Cobain and toured in tandem with Nirvana on several occasions. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Gus Van Sant's well-made Last Days has one insurmountable fault: it feels entirely unnecessary. The main problem is that the director has chosen to evoke the memory of Kurt Cobain so directly that it will be the only way for the vast majority of viewers to approach the film. While Michael Pitt offers a sparse, mumbling performance that captures the depression of the main character, the director is unable to make the character particularly meaningful. In Van Sant's previous film, the award-winning Elephant, he took a real-life event (the Columbine shootings) and set up a fictional account of the incident that would allow people to talk about why it happened. The motivations of school-shooters are rarely fully understood, but Cobain made his troubled inner life crystal clear in the songs he created in the year before his death. Pitt wrote two songs that he performs in the film. They are well done and work both as pieces of music and as glimpses inside the character's soul, but "All Apologies" and "I Hate Myself and Want to Die," did the same things and did them much more memorably. Taken back to back, those songs accomplish everything this film wants to and much more. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
Ricky Jay - Detective; Ryan Orion - Donovan; Harmony Korine - Guy In Club; The Hermitt - Band In Club; Kim Gordon; Adam Friberg - Elder Friberg #1; Andy Friberg - Elder Friberg #2; Thadeus A. Thomas - Yellow Book Salesman; Chip Marks - Tree Trimmer
Credit
Tim Grimes - Art Director, Jay Hernandez - Associate Producer, Mali Finn - Casting, Thurston Moore - Consultant/advisor, Michelle Matland - Costume Designer, Dany Wolf - First Assistant Director, Gus Van Sant - Director, Gus Van Sant - Editor, Joe C. Guest - Location Manager, Harris Savides - Cinematographer, Dany Wolf - Production Manager, Dany Wolf - Producer, Neil Riha - Sound Mixer, Felix Andrew - Sound/Sound Designer, Leslie Schatz - Sound/Sound Designer, Gus Van Sant - Screenwriter, James P. Dolan - Gaffer, Greg Spence - Post Production Supervisor, Teresa Bianchi - Production Coordinator, Jen Wall - Production Supervisor, Karen Cinorre - Properties, Marshall Garlington - Re-Recording Mixer, Jennifer Truelove - Second Assistant Director, Matías Mesa - Steadicam Operator, Scott Green - Still Photographer, Lori Eastside - Additional Casting, Lindsay Feldman - Assistant Production Coordinator, David Rapaport - Casting Associate, Leslie Saulter-Yacuk - Lead Scenic Artist, Derek Yip - Production Accountant, Greg Sullivan - Scenic Artist, Sarah E. McMillan - Set Decorator
Last Days (2005) is a film by director Gus Van Sant, and is a fictionalized account of the last days of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. It was released to theaters in the United States on July 22, 2005, and was produced by HBO. The film stars Michael Pitt as the character Blake, based on Kurt Cobain. Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth), Lukas Haas, Asia Argento, and Thadeus A. Thomas also star in the film. Director and friend of Van Sant's, Harmony Korine, appears in a brief club scene as well, playing a character similar to one in the movie Kids.
Van Sant said he thought about the project for nearly a decade. At one stage, he wanted to do a Cobain biopic, but decided against the idea out of fear of being sued by Cobain's widow, Courtney Love. He was not sure how Cobain's fans and family would react to the film. He spoke to Love several times over the years about his project and recently expressed his concern that it may be painful for her to see the film. Actress Asia Argento, who plays a dead-beat character in the film, stated, "It's been written that I play Courtney Love, and it's not true. I'm so upset. I don't know why people say that. I feel very sorry for her. She's been demonised and I feel sorry for anybody that's lost like that. But no, I play a character that's very dorky." [1]
The plot follows Blake, an alienated and disenchanted rock star who is escaping his turbulent life by isolating himself at his mansion. He eludes a private detective looking for him and ignores his ex-wife's demands that he should come home. Blake spends much of the film walking around, muttering to himself. He sometimes wears a dress and plays music. At one point, he goes out to a seedy rock club, then returns home, where he dies, presumably by suicide. His friends and associates flee to avoid suspicion.
Much like the real-life Kurt Cobain case, the ending is left ambiguous. A mysterious figure in a red, white, and blue cape can be seen wielding a knife and wandering around the greenhouse Blake dies in, before and after he dies.
Last Days is the third, and supposedly final installment, in what Van Sant has frequently called his "Death Trilogy", which began with Gerry and continued with Elephant. The most obvious similar trait in this trilogy of unrelated plots is that the dialogue and narration are minimal, and not linearly connected. The technique is especially similar to Elephant, where scenes are revisited from new angles, starting at differing points in time, without a signal that the clock was turned back at some point. In Paranoid Park, a later film by Van Sant, the same technique is used. As in Gerry, the camera's attention is frequently diverted from the drama, by attachment to some situational detail. All three films are resistant to easy explanation, but they share the theme of (among other things) extreme isolation (physical in Gerry, social in Elephant, and mental in Last Days).
Music
Last Days also features two original compositions by lead actor Michael Pitt, an acoustic song entitled "Death to Birth", an electric jam called "That Day", as well as another piece, "Untitled", by fellow actor Lukas Haas. Rodrigo Lopresti composed "Seen as None," and "Pointless Ride." [1] The character of Scott listens to "Venus in Furs" by the Velvet Underground in the living room scene. Blake, in one lengthy sequence, absently watches a music video for the song, "On Bended Knee" by the band Boyz II Men on a television. Incidentally the Velvet Underground's "Venus In Furs" features a lyric that refers to the line, "On Bended Knee". Pitt's character is also shown writing with his left hand but playing guitar right-handed, in contrast to Cobain's left-handed guitar playing. Soundscape piece called "Doors of perception" (Türen der Wahrnehmung) is work of Hildegard Westerkamp.
Filming location
The film was shot in the Hudson Valley region of New York state, although its aesthetic style, due largely in part to cinematographer Harris Savides' specialized treatment of the film stock, suggests the atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest, where both Cobain and Van Sant find their roots.
