Product Details

• Actors: Courtney Love, Nick Broomfield, Kurt Cobain, Al Bowman, Jack Briggs
• Directors: Nick Broomfield
• Producers: Nick Broomfield, Michele d'Acosta, Nick Fraser, Tine van den Brande
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• VHS Release Date: September 28, 1999
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000JRWS
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #310,134 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Watching a Nick Broomfield documentary (Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam) makes one not just want to shower, but to scrub oneself raw like Meryl Streep did in Silkwood. Going where even the tabloids fear to tread, the controversial Kurt & Courtney could also be called Courtney and Me. Investigating the apparent suicide of grunge icon Cobain, Broomfield runs into a formidable obstacle, namely Cobain's widow, Courtney Love. She blocked permission for him to use any of Cobain's music and ultimately got the film yanked from the Sundance Film Festival. Can't really blame her, as Broomfield follows the lead of a motley crew of conspiracy theorists, grudge-carrying former boyfriends, and estranged parents who suggest that Cobain was actually murdered at Love's behest. For those who watched bemused as Love reinvented herself as a Hollywood glamour girl, this is luridly entertaining stuff--albeit suspect. How much stock to put in S&M rocker El Duce (where does Bloomfield find these people?), who claims to have been offered money by Love to kill Cobain, and then offers to tell more if Broomfield will buy him a beer? Broomfield paints a much more sympathetic portrait of Cobain. In the film's most touching moment, an aunt plays a tape of a 2-year-old Cobain singing. "He's a prettly loud little guy," she says. These scenes will be nirvana for Cobain fans. --Donald Liebenson

From The New Yorker

Nick Broomfield's chilling documentary, set in the netherworlds of Seattle and other places in the Pacific Northwest, in which we get to meet some drug-addled or merely bizarre folk who believe that Courtney Love, the raucous post-feminist icon, may have killed her husband, Kurt Cobain. The anti-Courtney revelations are interesting but inconclusive: Rozz Rezabeck, a former rocker and boyfriend of Courtney's, is by far the most amusing figure; Hank Harrison, Love's father, who reveals that he bought pit bulls to discipline his adolescent daughter, is by far the most frightening. The true circumstances of Cobain's death remain cloudy, but one comes away from the film unnerved by the distance travelled: we begin in a sleepy Washington town, with a little blond boy who likes to sing Beatles songs, and end up lost in a haze of heroin. -Daphne Merkin
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars FOR NIRVANA FANS ONLY, September 29, 2001

By 

Mo Lindsey (Newark, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kurt and Courtney (DVD)

I think that you have to be a Nirvana fan to TOTALLY like this documentary. It isn't one of the best documentaries that I have seen but it is definitely a raw piece of work.

Most of the people involved in Kurts life that are depicted here are rather seedy and burnt out but that's part of the "beauty" of this film. It is an unflinching look at , not just Kurt and Courtney , but also the people who were in some way or another involved in their lives and you see them , warts and all. Although "El Duce" is a creep you have to wonder about his claims of Courtney paying him to kill Kurt. He could have obviously been lying and he is a creep but his responses to Nick's questions seem direct , candid and sincere. It makes you wonder.
The interview with "the nanny" was slow but somewhat revealing. Her general believe seems to be that Coutney didn't kill Kurt but she may have drove him to suicide.And the girl , Amy ,(wearing too much lipstick) seem to be just full of bolony.

The one upstanding person in this film is Kurt's aunt Mary. She is a person who you would've nevered figured to be related to Kurt Cobain. She played an audio tape of a 2 year old Kurt singing a song and referred to it as "early Nirvana". That was very cool.

There are pictures and never before seen home footage of Kurt in this film. One home video is of Kurt arriving at a Christmas party with his girlfriend in 1987. There is an interview of Kurt talking about his new found wealth and fame and also talking about having love in his life.(no pun intended)But the footage that sticks in my mind the most is the footage of Kurt at some sort of picnic it seems sitting on the ground staring across a creek while kids play around him. A little girl picks up her doll that is laying behind him and as she picks it up Kurt just looks over his shoulder at her. The camera gradually zooms in on Kurt , freezes , then fades to black. The clip isn't sharp because it is a home video but you see this thin man with the long blond hair , dark sweater , and worn out jeans and you can quickly tell that this is Kurt Cobain ; the grunge god and symbol of a generation just looking bored like his thoughts are somewhere else. And the movie ends with a smiling picture of Kurt as a child. That final segment of the film was very sentimental to me especially knowing the fate of that smiling kid. It was sad and rather haunting.

This film does lean to accusing Love of killing Kurt but there is nothing here that gives concrete evidence. The interview with Courtney and Nick getting in front of the audience and denouncing Love at the ACLU awards dinner reminds me of Michael Moorer's pursuit of Roger Smith in "Roger & Me"; the documenter , finally , face to face with his antagonist. But "Roger & Me" is a far superior piece of work than this film.

Get this dvd only if you are a fan of Kurt Cobain because you'll appreciate it more despite it's flaws.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great gonzo documentary about burnouts and losers!, December 25, 2000

By 

David P Jaudon (Ballston Spa, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kurt and Courtney (DVD)

Nick Broomfield is the best documentarian working today. Instead of adopting a ruse of objectivity, he jumps head first into the middle of the action, paying off interview subjects and arguing with his financial backers over the phone while the camera is rolling. While many people scoff at such "tabloid" antics, I find it refreshing, considering that most major news organizations do the same thing, but are too arrogant to admit it.

Broomfield's "Kurt and Courtney" attempts to answer the question "Who killed Kurt Cobain?" Broomfield more than implies that while Courtney Love may not have killed Cobain, she played a big part in "driving" Cobain to kill himself. Whether this is true or not, nobody will ever know.

But you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist (or even a fan of Cobain or Love) to enjoy this documentary. To answer his questions about the death of Cobain, Broomfield interviews every burnout and loser (as well as a few normal people, like Cobain's aunt, who comes off as so sweet and endearing, she appears to have walked in to the wrong movie) on the West Coast, resulting in some of the most side-splitting and horrifying interviews ever caught on film. Among the subjects: an ex-boyfriend of Love's who is extremely bitter over their relationship from more than a decade before (even though he claims he isn't); El Duce (the deceased former lead singer of "porn rock" legends the Mentors) whose bug-eyed, drunken antics should have been captured on film more often (preferably in his own sitcom on Fox); a couple of extraordinarly inept interview terrorists (known as "stalkerazzis") who appear to have even lower I.Q.'s than the average Howard Stern phony phone caller; and Love's Dad, who is even more bitter than the ex-boyfriend and has written not one, but TWO books denigrating his daughter.

"Kurt and Courtney" is a great movie, not only about the underbelly of society, but also of the documentary process.

Also highly recommended: Nick Broomfield's "Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam," which is just as sleazy, scary, and funny as "Kurt and Courtney."

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely watchable., September 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Kurt and Courtney (DVD)

I viewed this movie twice in one evening: once alone, and then I forced my husband to sit down and watch it with me. Wow! I was intrigued by the movie's subject of Kurt Cobain (his music flooded the airwaves during my first years in college...), but I was never a die-hard fan. This movie showed me his humanity; it works as a Kurt bio-pic documentary for the most part. The "Courtney conspiracy" was just an added extra. I don't know if I believe she had him killed, but I do believe there was definitely something going on with her. It was by her own refusal to speak to the filmmaker that she was cast in a bad light (we do, however, get to hear a recorded phone message that no doubt shows her true spirit). This movie is very interestly shot, and the filmmaker (who doubles as the film's narrator) is extremely intelligent and likeable. I highly recommend it!