Rob: I was so focused on what I needed to do, and also excited to be there jamming with Metallica, that I actually kind of wanted the audition to be filmed. I was more worried about the personal stuff, like, Are these guys going to ask me crazy personal questions, and what’s the deal with these cameras? But as far as the actual performance, I was kind of excited, ’cause then, hey, you know, this will be documented. I’m rocking out with Metallica! [laughs] If there was going to be some sort of interview where I’d have the camera in my face, that was gonna be weird, but I just dealt with it.
James: I think this film is special because bands don’t normally go through something like this. People don’t normally go through something like this. The normal feedback I’ve gotten from record-company people and others who know us—or at least know the “us” that they want to know-is, “Wow, it was almost like I shouldn’t be watching, it’s kind of voyeuristic.” And then there’ve been people who’ve said, “Boy, James, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you were portrayed in kind of a bad light.” [laughs]
Lars: I never knew how it was gonna play out until it was about five P.M. on that Monday up at Lucas’s ranch, when I saw all the bits tied together in a dramatic form. When you came out there and showed us the film, that was the first time I realized there was a dramatic thread to the last two years, and that you ended up with another potentially great Berlinger-Sinofsky film. I was nervous going into the screening, but three hours later I had shed all nervousness and divorced myself from the fact that that was me up there. As soon as the dramatic thread came into play, I became immersed in the film as I hope other people will. I didn’t sit there looking at double chins or the weird-ass lack of showers, or any of that stuff. I was able to step outside myself as a member of Metallica and just be a human being who’s interested in the process and results of documentary films.
James: As a “cast member” sitting in the audience watching it, it felt really strange. As time goes on, I think I’ll watch it a little more and get more comfortable with it. You know, if it were a film that we were acting in, I think I would be watching the shit out of it and critiquing myself. But, you know, it’s just us, so, “Okay, I lived that, now bring on the next moment.”
Kirk: The film has a percolating quality to it. When I watched it, it put a lot of thoughts into my head. I had my reservations, but for the sake of the film you can’t have too many. You can’t think about yourself. You can’t say, “Oh, I don’t want that to be shown because I said the wrong thing or I look like crap because I was sick or whatever.” To start chopping it up like that, you wouldn’t have a film, ’cause the film is so much about that. So I’m glad we as a band didn’t make any major changes. I mean, what could we change? The whole experience changed me quite a bit, and I hope the other guys feel the same. And, you know, like I said, there are some parts of the film that I could probably say, “Do we really need that part?” But then you wouldn’t have a complete picture. It’s like, do I want my pride to be satisfied, or do I want the truth to be told? And I thought it was very important for the truth to be told. Watching the film was kind of a vindication of what I felt while I was experiencing it. When I saw those experiences on film, I totally just relived them again and felt a lot of the same emotions. When you step outside yourself and view yourself more objectively, you see yourself in a different light. And I definitely had a reaction to that. It was a positive reaction, but it was just funny feeling things all over again, things I hadn’t felt since that spring and summer of 2002.
Lars: Looking back on the close to three years we spent on this project, it’s been an incredibly interesting learning experience. And I love the two-dimensionality of it, how I got to be a subject of the film as well as somebody who, I guess, was helping to drive it along as a project. I think we developed not only a friendship but also a respect for each other and a kind of thing where you guys really were part of the team–not just outsiders documenting it. We could’ve just as easily turned the cameras around. Maybe we did a couple of times, and you guys, in your humbleness, chose to minimize your presence. I think it’s certainly interesting how the film played a role in all of the other creative processes. There was a kind of perverse beauty to the fact that the film was affecting what was going on, and I’m glad there’s a nod to that in the film. There’s a new kind of gray area between reality TV and documentary, stuff that’s somewhat staged, and I don’t want to mention any names or anything, but we’re probably all aware of who that might be. I’m proud of the fact that we did not stage anything. You guys were either there, or you weren’t there. I do think your presence elevated what was being captured, especially in the therapy sessions, which got very intense and very naked. The cameras made us realize that we could not bullshit each other. There was no half-assing things, because the cameras captured every nuance and every emotional expression to the fullest.
Oslo, Norway, December 2, 2003 (Courtesy of Joe Belinger)
James: People get different things from the film. People get the things they need, when they need them, and I know that for a fact. You can shove the message in people’s face all you want, but if they’re not ready for it, they’re not ready for it. It doesn’t mean they’re less of a person, or above it all. They just don’t need to hear it right then. You hear it when you need it. What’s that expression—“When the student’s ready, the teacher appears.” That’s so true. And I was ready.
Lars: Whenever Metallica has done creative projects, whatever they may be, we’ve always felt that we had to answer to no fucker—it was just the band and, you know, its managers, sharing the creative direction of where the project was going. For the first time ever in our twenty-year history, because the record company was paying the bills all of a sudden, the record company started making creative suggestions and even creative demands. And that was a new place for us to be, an unusual and awkward place for us to be. We decided to stand up for you guys and decided the record company should have no role in deciding where this project was going. We had to basically buy back our own work, in order to retain the control we desire of anything Metallica-related.
James: This movie is kind of like me telling on myself, in a way. The whole demystifying of the image … You know, that image was a big part of what kept me in my addiction and kept me bullshitting myself. There are times when it’s easier for me to go through life with nobody knowing what I’m thinking. Or I can walk into a room like this loose cannon, where no one knows what’s going to happen, so it keeps them at bay. It fueled my isolation and fueled a lot of my hatred for the world. It’s like, I wanted to fit in, but I definitely did not want to at the same time. Because I grew so comfortable with the “no one really knows me” part of my existence. So I believe the demystifying is going to help people understand that, at the end of the day, we are human. We are not these “metal gods” that you speak of. [laughs] We have a great gift, but we are human beings put into strange situations—sometimes on pedestals, sometimes thrown down sewers.
Kirk: It will be interesting to see how this ages. I’m gonna make a point of watching it in five years, in ten years, just to see how it ages.
James: You know, nobody thought this film would be the big deal that it is now. Yeah, starting off as some promotional TV commercial, and then getting to this, is great. And no one was murdered. There didn’t have to be a murder for it to be a good documentary like your other ones.
APPENDIX: SOME KIND OF CREDITS
Appendix: Some Kind of Credits (A Partial List)
Opening Credits (Cards)
A Third Eye Motion Picture Company Release
[email protected] Production
A Film by Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky
METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER
End Credits (Cards)
DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY
Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky
SUPERVISING EDITOR
David Zieff
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Bo
b Richman
ADDITIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY
Wolfgang Held
EDITORS
Doug Abel
M Watanabe Milmore
SOUND RECORDIST
Michael Emery
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Joe Berlinger
Jon Kamen
Frank Scherma
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Cheryll Stone
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS
Michael Bonfiglio
Rachel Dawson
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Kristine Smith
Begin End Credit Roll
METALLICA IS
James Hetfield
Lars Ulrich
Kirk Hammett
Robert Trujillo
FEATURING (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
Zach Harmon
Eric Helmkamp
Will Maclachlan
Antonio Freitas
Uwe Bradke
Zane Lowe
Marcelo Flores
Erica Forstadt
Marko Lehtinen
Knut Claussen
Phil Towle
Bob Rock
Mike Gillies
Masanori Ito
Stefan Chirazi
Myles Ulrich
Castor Hetfield
Francesca Hetfield
Skylar Ulrich
Jason Newsted
Martin Carlsson
Brian Sagrafena
Dylan Donkin
Torben Ulrich
Steven Wiig
Dave Mustaine
Gio Gasparetti
Niclas Swanlund Cali Hetfield
“Crazy Cabbie”
Cliff Burnstein
Michael Ansaldo
Brett Gorvy
Peter Mensch
Scott Reeder
Jeordie White (aka Twiggy Ramirez)
Pepper Keenan
Chris Wyse
Eric Avery
Danny Lohner
Peter Paterno
Marc Reiter
CONSULTING PRODUCER
Robert Fernandez
ADDITIONAL CAMERA
Joe Berlinger
John Chater
Bob Elfstrom
Don Lenzer
Nancy Schreiber, ASC
Bruce Sinofsky
Niclas Swanlund
GAFFER
Thomas Schnitzler
ADDITIONAL SOUND
Neal Gettinger
John Haptas
James Jack
Edward O’Connor
PRODUCTION COORDINATORS
Teresa Bianchi
James O’Donnell
Soraya Victory
ADDITIONAL EDITING
Lawrence Silk
ASSISTANT EDITORS
Jennifer Brooks
Leslie King
2ND UNIT CAMERA
Eli Adler
John Behrens
Michael Bonnglio
Mike Hatchet
Robin McLeod
Nancy Morita
Allan Palmer
Bruce Smith
Stephen Spaulding
Bill Winters
2ND UNIT SOUND
Tom Bergin
Raymond Day
Doug Dunderdale
Richard Hemming
Scott Kinzey
Peter Miller
Lauretta Molitor
Janet Urban
ADDITIONAL GAFFERS
Mike Booth
Drew Eckmann
Garrett Freberg
Ned Hallick
John Priebe
Kieran Sweeney
Mike Van Dine
TECHNICAL ADVISOR
Evan Schechtman
TECHNICAL CONSULTANT
Marc Frydman
AVID CONSULTANT
Michael Whipple
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Brian Heller
HELICOPTER PILOT
Al Cerullo
STILL PHOTOGAPHER
Annamaria DiSanto
KEY PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS
Lori Joseph
Cindy Rhodes
PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS
Ray Aparicio
Jonathan Besch
Roger Cadillo
Hope Dotson
Stacey Fox
Philine Gordon
Elizabeth Hadley
Brad Jakobsen
Jamal Johnson
Sean Jones
Ian Kennedy
Filio Kontrafouri
Darren Kramer
David Marchetti
Matt Marks
Jose Paredes
Guy Pinhas
Jade Reeves
Geoffrey Sawyer
Gino Tomac
Andrew Wallace
Michael Westerman
Grant Wheeler
Mike Wilemon
Steve Winters
PRODUCTION INTERNS
Julia Barry
Nick Duch
Deloris Dudley
EUROPEAN CREW
PRODUCTION COORDINATORS
Luca Callori
Agnès Gardette/@radical.media, Paris
Guillaume Lepert
Mads Nørfelt
Marstrand/Locomotion Denmark
Ben Schneider/@radical.media, Berlin
Aleksander Zobec/Terminal Production Bologna
ADDITIONAL CAMERA
Cedric Fontana
Piero Margotti
Ben Schneider
Oliver Vogt
ADDITIONAL SOUND
Enzo Cascucci
Horian Niederleitinger
Christian Estève Vale
GRIP
Vincent Botsch
KEY PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
Tobias Weinreich
PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS
Phillip Blauner
Mads Peter Bliddal
Pier Giorgio Castellani
Mads Lilholt
Alessio Maniscalco
Oliver Mueck
Jesper Nordlund
Pierre Pechard
Mario Reetz
Edgard Sassia
Katya Troell
Nadine Sklodowski
Romain Staropoli
Pasqualino Suppa
POST-PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR
Michael J. Balabuch
ONLINE EDITOR
David Gargani
Blue Room Editorial
FILM LAB
Technicolor—New York
LAB SUPERVISOR
Joe Violante
LAB COORDINATOR
Charles Herzfeld
DIGITAL INTERMEDIATE AND ARRI FILM TRANSFER
Technicolor Creative Services—New York
DIGITAL INTERMEDIATE EDITOR
Cecil Hooker
DIGITAL INTERMEDIATE SENIOR COLORIST
Joe Gawler
DIGITAL FILM POST SUPERVISOR
Julie Fischer
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
Christian Zak
SOUND EDITOR
Andy Kris
ASSISTANT SOUND EDITOR
Jeremy Frindel
SOUND RE-RECORDING MIXER
Peter Waggoner
POST PRODUCTION SOUND FACILITY
Sound One
DOLBY SOUND ENGINEER
Paul Sacco
AVID UNITY SYSTEM PROVIDED BY
Postworks
TITLE DESIGN AND VISUAL EFFECTS PRODUCED BY
Big Film Design
Randy Balsmeyer, Designer
Amit Sethi, Digital Artist
J. John Corbett, Digital Artist
BFD Producer, Kathy Kelehan
TITLE ARTWORK AND ST. ANGERI ILLUSTRATION
Matt Mahurin
METALLICA MANAGEMENT
Q Prime Inc.
METALLICA BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Provident Financial Management
Joni Soekotjo
Fred Duffin
Wendy Hofihine
LEGAL SERVICES PROVIDED BY
King, Holmes, Paterno & Berliner, LLP
Peter Paterno
Debra MacCulloch
Howard King
Seth Miller
Jacqueline Sabec
Leslie Frank
RIGHTS & CLEARANCES
Debra MacCulloch
ADDITIONAL MUSIC CLEARANCES
Chris Robertson, Diamond Time
@RADICAL. MEDIA GENERAL COUNSEL
Sabrina Padwa
TRAVEL AGENT
Joan Batchelder, Aspen Travel
PRODUCTION INSURANCE
Elena Ferrara, Taylor & Taylor
MET CLUB
Steffan Chirazi
Danna McCallum
Samantha McNally
Jean Reichert
Robert Reisinger
Toby Stapleton
Vickie Strate
Niclas Swanlund
Kimberly Vosti
Jeffrey Yeager
SPECIAL THANKS
Aric Ackerman
Ray Aparicio
Dzhon Athanc
Dan Braun
Jez Breadin
Mike Caldarella
Steffan Chirazi
Christie’s
Kessel Crockett
Debbie Deuble-Hill
Tony DiCioccio
Adam Dubin
Elektra Entertainment Group
Lesley Frazer
Amy Gold
Brett Gorvy
Michelle Gurney
India Hammer
Lynda Hansen
Chris Hanson
Eric Helmkamp
Richard Hofstetter
Brian Inerfeld
Wayne Isham
Rob Issen
Rob Kenneally
Chris Kim
Pete Krawiec
Signe Lando
Flemming Larsen
Jack Lechner
Brian Lew
Dana Marshall
Tracie Mochizuki
Frank Munoz
Christopher Napolitano
Matt Olyphant
Julie O’Niell
Metallica: This Monster Lives Page 36