Metallica: This Monster Lives

by Joe Berlinger

  The next stop, hopefully was Sundance.

  While we were waiting to hear from Sundance, I got a deal from St. Martin’s Press to write this book. The demand for the book was actually the first sign that other people thought the film was as intriguing as Bruce and I did. I never even wrote a book proposal. Instead, my agent invited reps from several publishing houses to a rough-cut screening, and a bidding war ensued. These people were the first real “intelligentsia” to praise the film, further suggesting that it had crossover potential and wasn’t just a fan love letter.

  Once the deal was finalized, I made plans to go to San Francisco to meet with Metallica over Thanksgiving for one final round of interviews specifically for the book. I wanted the guys to reflect on what it was like to be trailed by our cameras for more than two years, a process they’d scoffed at back in 1999 when we met them at the Four Seasons. On the Friday before Thanksgiving, James’s bodyguard, Gio, e-mailed me to say the band members, who were just finishing a leg of their European tour and about to begin another, really wanted some time to themselves over the holiday. They proposed a very “Metallica” alternative: they offered to fly me all the way to Oslo, Norway, a few days after Thanksgiving to meet with them on a day when no concert was scheduled. To be honest, I would have preferred the Bay Area; Oslo in the winter is pretty dreary, with about five total hours of sunlight each day. But if this was easier for them, and they were paying for the trip, I figured, what the hell. And since I was meeting up with them on tour, this would be a good opportunity to take some still photos for the book and Monster’s promotional materials. (I normally like to photograph our subjects while we’re making our films, something I’d mostly avoided this time, so as not to seem like another hanger-on looking for a piece of these guys.)

  By the middle of November, as I was making plans to go to Oslo, we still had not heard from Sundance. In past years, we’d been given the news on the Friday before Thanksgiving. The Friday after Thanksgiving came and went, and still no word. We were hearing rumors about certain films already being accepted. I was starting to get really nervous. It wasn’t absolutely essential that Monster get shown at Sundance. A lot of terrific documentaries, such as the Oscar-nominated My Architect, have been rejected by Sundance and gone on to critical and commercial acclaim. Conversely, many documentaries that have screened at Sundance do no business and are ignored by critics. But Sundance was an important psychological threshold that Bruce and I felt we needed to cross for the sake of the Metallica organization. During the final days of deciding whether to accept VH1’s offer, when Bruce and I were pushing hard for a theatrical release, we had argued that the film was good enough to play the festival. When Metallica was in New York to master St. Anger, we went out on a limb and virtually guaranteed its acceptance. I felt we needed to get in to prove that Metallica’s faith in us was justified.

  By Sunday, I was convinced there was no way we’d gotten in. Even Bruce, the eternal optimist, thought our window of acceptance had passed. “We suck,” he said, trying his best to cheer me up when I called him from the airport. I was in a glum mood when I boarded the SAS flight to Oslo that night. Flying over the Atlantic, a gathering cloud of dread hung over me. I started to rehearse what I’d say to break the news about Sundance to the band. (“Oh, it doesn’t matter—Bruce and I have outgrown Sundance. They probably rejected us because they wanted to give the slot to newer filmmakers.”) I didn’t reach the Grand Hotel until five P.M. Monday. I ran into Rex King, Metallica’s tour manager, who told me that I should meet the band in the lobby the next day at noon, when they were heading over to the venue to do a sound check. Rex eyed me curiously. “Are you okay, Joe?” The cloud of dread was practically enveloping me, but I told him I was just jet-lagged.

  I went back to my room and crashed. At midnight, I awoke with a jolt, acutely feeling the disorientation of jet lag. I thought about Sundance and figured I’d check the messages on my cell phone. And there it was, coming across the Atlantic: a message from Trevor Groth, a Sundance programmer, raving about Monster and inviting us to participate in the “American Spectrum” section of the festival.1 After twenty-four hours of being prepared for the worst, I was ecstatic. I immediately called Bruce and reached him in a sound effects studio with David Zieff. I decided to toy with my partner a little.

  “So, have you heard any news?”

  “No, not yet. But it’s the Monday after Thanksgiving, so I’m sure we didn’t get in. We are such losers.”

  “Bruce, we are not losers.”

  “Yeah, well, have fun telling that to Metallica once they hear we didn’t get in.”

  “But Bruce—we did get in.”

  For a second, the only sound on the line was the transatlantic static. “No fucking way.”

  “Yes fucking way!”

  “We’re going to Sundance!”

  Now there was no way I was going to sleep. I grabbed my pack of Drum tobacco and rolled a cigarette. (I have this odd sophomoric habit of allowing myself to smoke when I’m in Europe; my joke is that you can’t get cancer over there.) I rode the elevator downstairs, and as soon as the doors opened, I spotted Lars and his assistant, Steve, walking through the lobby doors. Besides us, the lobby was completely deserted. We gave each other the obligatory “Phil hug.” “Hey, man,” I said, staring Lars in the face. “We got into Sundance.”

  “No shit. That’s great!” Even Lars, master of the aloof, was wearing a huge smile. Then he got a mock-concerned look on his face. He said they’d be on tour in Australia during the festival. “You can’t accept,” he said. “If we can’t be there, you can’t.”

  The three of us had a celebratory drink in the hotel bar. Wired with excitement and looking for something to do, we left the hotel and began walking the deserted streets of Oslo. I had this really clear feeling that my relationship with Lars had undergone a fundamental change. At the beginning of this project, I had been concerned that he might mistakenly view me as a sycophant who was only making this film because I was so into Metallica. Drifting through Oslo on this foggy December night, I felt, for the first time, like Lars and I had formed a true friendship based on mutual respect and the emotional journey we’d embarked on together. As we walked, we talked about Oslo’s favorite sons, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch. And of course, we discussed the future of Some Kind of Monster. It was as though one chapter of my life was coming to an end and a new one was beginning.

  At noon the next day, I went down to the lobby to meet the band. James was already there, talking with some local friends. I was used to giving James his space, so I stood off to the side. Since I hadn’t seen him since the Skywalker screening three months before, I wasn’t sure how he’d react or if he’d even care that we’d gotten into Sundance. Actually, with all the distractions of going on tour, I wasn’t even sure he’d remember that we’d submitted the film to Sundance and how important it was that we get in. To my surprise, as soon as he saw me, he got up and gave me a huge bear hug. I told him about Sundance and he embraced me again. “Sundance! Cool!” I was really taken aback. The “old” James, the one who missed his son’s first birthday to shoot bears in Russia, seemed thousands of miles away, still holed up in a Presidio bunker.

  Kirk and Rob came down together, and James excitedly broke the news to them. Rob was pleased, but he was obviously not as emotionally connected to the film as the others. Kirk had the most muted response. Although he was clearly happy for all of us, he still harbored very mixed feelings about relinquishing so much of his privacy.2

  I took some photos at the sound check and figured out my camera positions for the night’s performance. I ran them by the security detail and promised the sound engineer that this would be my last time onstage for a long time (we had periodically annoyed him by blocking his view of the band during concerts). That night, I had a blast taking photos. Since I knew this was my last shoot and that the guys were psyched about Sundance, and because Metallica was playing on an arena stage much smaller than the ba
nd’s gargantuan stadium setup, I kept pressing my luck by moving closer to each member as I snapped photos. They didn’t seem to mind. I ended up with some really cool photos. My favorite is a tight shot of James wearing his aggro stage face. The only thing in clear focus is the wedding ring on his left hand as he grips the neck of his guitar, a symbol to me of his renewed commitment to his wife and himself.3

  The next day, I conducted the interviews I’d come all the way to Oslo to do. It was good to talk to everyone and get their feedback on what it was like to live life under the glare of our cameras. I spoke with James last, and it was particularly rewarding to get his reaction to something that had happened a few weeks earlier, at a screening of Monster we’d arranged for some members of Metallica’s fan club in New York. “We were pretty nervous,” I said to James. “Because these were the first Metallica fans to see it. In fact, very few people had seen it, period.” When the lights went up, we asked for their feedback. There was a very intense guy, probably in his mid thirties, who looked a lot like James. You could tell he was dying to speak his mind. I called on him, and he said, “You know, when I was seventeen, eighteen, I drank and banged my head to Metallica. All through my twenties, I was really hard-core and drank myself into the ground. I’m married now, I have kids, and I’m trying to do right by my family. And to see James Hetfield go through that, deal with his shit, it makes me want to deal with my shit. If James can go through this, so can I. And it just makes me feel closer to the band.”

  I related all this to James in his Oslo hotel room. He was silent for a long moment. He looked really choked up. Finally he said, “Hearing that … it’s moving for me. For so long, my message was, ‘Rebel against society, yourself, God, everything …’ “He chuckled.” ‘Anything that stands for anything. Drink your problems away, question everybody.’ You know, that whole lone-wolf attitude. But now I’ve turned into ‘father wolf,’ protecting my family and really loving life. There’s more of a purpose to my life now. … All my struggles in lyrics are very evident to me now—not my struggle with writing lyrics, but my struggle in life, and learning how to write about it, and challenging someone else to do the same, you know? I really think that’s the role model I can be proud of, instead of being the leader of ‘Alcoholica.’ It’s so human to want to be better, to survive, no matter what the odds. Instead of using those old survival techniques, I recognized the destruction I was doing to myself. And if I can inspire someone to do the same, even if it’s just one person, that’s an awesome result of having gone through all this. Very worthwhile. And there’s no reason that can’t continue, you know? Being on the road and talking with people—it’s much more of a mission and purpose in life. No matter what happens with this band.”

  Courtesy of Joe Berlinger

  As I left James’s room, it hit me—I was now officially done with filming and interviewing Metallica. I walked out of the hotel around seven P.M. Four dark Mercedes limos were parked out front, waiting for the band. As I’d seen dozens of times throughout Europe and America, hundreds of fans who’d figured out where the band was staying were waiting outside the hotel, hoping to spend a few seconds with their heroes and maybe even get an autograph. I waved to Rex, the tour manager, who was standing near one of the limos. Some fans saw this simple gesture and interpreted it to mean Metallica was about to walk out the door. A buzz went through the crowd. I walked through them, smiling to myself. I passed a woman who looked a lot like my wife, holding the hands of two young girls who looked a lot like my kids. I walked into the Studenten Internet Café so I could e-mail my family to say how much I missed them and that I knew this film had taken a toll on our lives. I was just about to hit Send when the sound system started emitting some familiar music. It took me a second to realize it was “Some Kind of Monster.”

  During the ten days we spent at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Bruce and I kept marveling at what a difference a decade makes. When we came here for Brother’s Keeper in 1992, we were complete unknowns with an almost obnoxious willingness to get noticed. We gave out hats and buttons and blanketed Main Street with flyers. We were determined to create some buzz for ourselves and sell our movie. Today, none of that would seem odd, but this was back when Sundance was much more low-key and not nearly as much of a swag fest. Back then, we had no idea how to navigate the festival. We tried to go to every party, assuming there would be people there that we should meet, but we didn’t really know who those people were and we often didn’t even know how to get into the party. We seethed with jealousy at the attention others were getting and wondered how we were supposed to make our mark. Then our film won the Audience Award and we still couldn’t grab the brass ring we were sure would be waiting for us.

  This time around, we arrived as established filmmakers, without boxes of buttons. A crew from the Sundance Channel followed us around for a profile, calling us “veteran filmmakers” since this was our third film to receive a Sundance premiere. Donna Daniels, the publicist we’d hired to promote the film, had done an amazing job attracting media interest to the film. We were inundated with so many press requests that we had to turn down most regional publications. Donna also engineered a Sundance first: a satellite press conference with Metallica, who were on tour in Australia. From the moment our plane landed, I started getting phone calls from distributors looking to make a deal. I was surprised to discover I was also getting calls from major studios eager to discuss the video rights for Monster. I had assumed no company would want to cut a video deal until Monster had proved its theatrical mettle. We happily avoided the irritating parties. For the first time in my life, I was determined to actually enjoy Sundance. I even spent the first two days skiing. We were living a filmmaker’s dream—locked in our condo, having heated discussions with corporate suitors who were all interested in our movie. One of the meetings, with Paramount, lasted six hours.

  The one dissonant moment occurred when I checked my e-mail from the ski lodge on the second day. Donna was giving me a routine update on which publications had expressed an interest in covering the film. One name leapt out at me: Dennis Harvey. I felt a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Harvey was the Variety writer who had reviewed Blair Witch 2. Reading his review, which had come out the afternoon of the film’s premiere, marked the precise moment when my year-long depression began. I called Donna, who told me that Harvey was apparently really eager to review Monster. This couldn’t be good. The nightmare was beginning anew. Bruce, as usual the calmer and more optimistic half of our duo, told me to relax: Why would Harvey have such a vendetta against me that he would look forward to panning another one of my films? And wasn’t he a Bay Area guy? Maybe that’s why he had an interest in Metallica. Whatever the reason for Harvey getting the assignment, Bruce was right—the review, which came out a few days later, was glowing.

  The three screenings of Monster were a big success, if for no other reason that people actually got up early to see them. After premiering in front of a sellout crowd at 9:00 P.M., the film showed two more times over the next two days, at screenings that began at 8:30 and 9:00 A.M. Although this was a strange hour to view a rock-and-roll movie, the morning screenings also sold out. Metallica was on tour in Australia, but Lars asked that I check in with him every day to give him a progress report on how the film was being received (“If I can’t be there, you have to make me feel like I am”). The band members were represented by their spouses, Francesca Hetfield, Skylar Ulrich, and Lani Hammett, as well as Q Prime’s Cliff Burnstein, Peter Mensch, and Marc Reiter, plus Bob Rock and Phil Towle. Phil seemed to be in much better spirits regarding his presence in the film.

  After every screening, we did a brief Q&A session with the audience. The first question after the first screening was from someone who wanted to know why the film didn’t contain more details about Phil’s personal and professional background.

  “Well, Phil is right behind you,” I said. “Why don’t you ask him?” The audience laughed as heads swiveled to find Phil in the
audience.

  Bruce invited Phil up to answer the question himself. Phil made his way to the podium, gave us each a hug, and then turned to the questioner and said, “Go ahead, what was your question?” Phil ended up bouncing the question to me. I responded, “We had 1,600 hours of footage and many threads of a huge story, and we feel we gave the audience as much information as it needed. But we think this guy did an incredible job with the band. I believe if it wasn’t for the therapy sessions, Metallica wouldn’t exist.” We took a few more questions. The final one came from a guy who thanked Phil for being Metallica’s therapist, since the band had been therapeutic for so many of its fans.4

  At Sundance, the Q Prime managers began to adopt a different attitude toward Monster. They had always been cautious about our film, questioning whether these crazy filmmakers had a better idea than making an infomercial or reality TV series. Even when it became clear that we had made a worthwhile documentary, they only let their guard down slightly. I think Sundance was a real revelation for them. When they saw the buzz we attracted and realized that we weren’t just blowing smoke when we said Monster deserved a theatrical release, they started getting excited about the film’s prospects. For the first time, I felt like they were fully embracing our vision of the project.

  The deal we wound up negotiating was unusual. Paramount was interested in a straightforward acquisition of the film, but knowing that we were more interested in a service deal for the theatrical release, it offered to distribute the film through Paramount Classics, the division of the company that handles smaller, art-house films. Paramount was also offering a $3.5 million advance for the video and worldwide television rights. The Paramount people thought they were giving us the best of both worlds: the theatrical service deal we wanted plus a significant advance for the ancillary rights. But I thought we could do a better job selling the TV rights ourselves, and Bruce and I still wanted to go with IFC for the service deal. IFC was offering a lower fee for its service deal than Paramount, with the added bonus that we wouldn’t have to schlep out to L.A. for meetings. I also disagreed with Paramount Classics’s plan to wait until late summer to release Monster. This film would live or die by reviews and publicity, and I was concerned that it would be overshadowed by the Olympics in August. I convinced Paramount to take only the video rights (the company cut its advance by a million dollars) without requiring us to use Paramount Classics for the theatrical release. Since Paramount Classics had brought this deal to the table, this was a real coup for us. Now we really had the best of both worlds: a big studio to release the DVD and our first choice, IFC, for the theatrical service deal. This is the kind of complex deal that usually requires a lawyer to parse, so I was proud that I’d gotten Paramount to agree to this unusual arrangement.