This Much I Know To Be True

“My response to a cri­sis has always been to cre­ate”, Nick Cave wrote on his fan cor­re­spon­dence site, the Red Hand Files, soon after the out­break of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Upon the release of his lat­est stu­dio album, Car­nage, he went on to announce:

“Five years have passed since Andrew made One More Time With Feel­ing. Much has changed. But some things haven’t. The world still turns, ever per­ilous, but con­tain­ing its many joys. Music remains a balm. Friend­ships endure. This let­ter is frac­tured. I am so excit­ed to perform.” 

Andrew Dominik’s 2016 3D mono­chrome doc­u­men­tary delin­eat­ed a heart­break­ing por­trait of a grief-strick­en Nick Cave as he grap­pled with the trag­ic death of his teenage son Arthur. His lat­est, This Much I Know to be True, unfolds as a con­cert film shot under covid restric­tions, when live music was off the menu. It doc­u­ments the fruits of col­lab­o­ra­tion cul­ti­vat­ed between Cave and his long­time cre­ative part­ner and Bad Seeds band­mate, War­ren Ellis, as their last two stu­dio albums are brought to life: Ghos­teen (The Bad Seeds) and Cave and Ellis’ first solo col­lab­o­ra­tion out­side of their pro­lif­ic film scores, Carnage.

With Car­nage, Cave and Ellis brought a refined inten­si­ty to the brood­ing min­i­mal­ism of its pre­de­ces­sor. It’s a record that’s con­cerned with vivid fic­tion, cin­e­mat­ic lan­guage, tex­ture and tumult rather than the for­mal essence of verse and cho­rus. Dominik apt­ly cre­ates a deeply emo­tion­al atmos­phere to cap­ture this mag­net­ism, while he also lays bare the film­mak­ing process. Noth­ing feels fabricated. 

The inti­mate yet grand set­ting of an emp­ty hall in Bat­tersea Arts Cen­tre allows each note to rever­ber­ate per­fect­ly, bring­ing for­ward crisp son­ic tex­tures unob­struct­ed by the hub­bub of applause. Exquis­ite­ly timed, drift­ing strobes that tonal­ly com­ple­ment the synth-heavy tracks inten­si­fy the razor-sharp per­for­mances, and it’s a star turn for Rob­bie Ryan’s cam­era as it ele­gant­ly swoops and glides through the space. The stage design is impec­ca­ble. Dol­lies cir­cle the track, engag­ing in a col­lec­tive­ly chore­o­graphed dance with the crew, singers and string quartet. 

Each shot is framed with ten­der­ness, and the rap­port between Cave, Ellis and Dominik is a pal­pa­ble tes­ta­ment to the depth of their trust for one anoth­er. This, paired with the fact that This Much I Know to be True is root­ed in per­for­mance and not much con­text, should suf­fice in jus­ti­fy­ing such a sym­pa­thet­ic depic­tion of Cave. Some­times the con­tent of his songs and his pol­i­tics can prove antag­o­nis­tic, yet as an an artist, he is clear­ly at the peak of his powers.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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