Metallica: This Monster Lives
Page 37
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The staff of the Prescott
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Ned Rosenthal
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VERY SPECIAL THANKS
Sarah Berlinger
Maya Berlinger
Florence Boissinot
Cliff Burnstein
Lorraine Coyle
Loren Eiferman
Gio Gasparetti
Mike Gillies
Lani Hammett
Zach Harmon
Francesca Hetfield
Cali Hetfield
Castor Hetfield
Marcella Hetfield
Rex King
Peter Mensch
Dave Mustaine
Jason Newsted
Marc Reiter
Alex Sinofsky
Tristan Sinofsky
Claire Sinofsky
Adeline Sinofsky
Luc Sinofsky
Vickie Strate
Niclas Swanlund
Phil & Gail Towle
Skylar Ulrich
Myles Ulrich
Layne Ulrich
Steven Wiig
Soundtrack available on Elektra Records
St. Anger available on Elektra Records
www.somekindof monster.com
www.metallica.com
www.berlinger-sinofsky.com
Copyright © 2004 by We’re Only In It for the Music. All rights reserved. This motion picture is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America and other countries. Any unauthorized duplication, copying, or use of all or part of this motion picture may result in civil liability and/or criminal prosecution in accordance with applicable laws.
Notes
Chapter 1. Pitch ’Em All
1. Considering what happened to him later, I now realize that Jason’s acquiescence marked the first ironic moment associated with Some Kind of Monster. There would be many more.
Chapter 2. Give Me Fuel, Give Me Fire, Gimme Shelter
1. Although the Maysleses’ films are part of the direct-cinema movement, I am using the more broadly accepted term “cinema verité” from this point on to refer to all films that fall under the direct-cinema and verité rubrics.
Chapter 3. West Memphis and Beyond
1. This wasn’t the fist time prosecutors have tried to link Metallica’s music to a homicide. Travis Kunkle, a Texas man convicted of a 1984 murder, reportedly chanted the line “another day, another death, another sorrow, another breath” from “No Remorse” after he shot his victim. The lead prosecutor in the case told a San Antonio newspaper that when the song was played in court, Kunkle played air guitar, suggesting he had “very little regard for human life.” After 19 years on death row, Kunkle, now 38, was scheduled to die from lethal injection on July 7, 2004, half an hour before the screening of Some Kind of Monster at the film’s premiere party in New York. That same day, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution, saying it was still considering a writ filed by Kunkle’s lawyers, who claimed that the jury in Kunkle’s case should have been allowed to consider such mitigating factors as Kunkle’s abusive upbringing and mental illness.
2. Alex Sinofsky, Bruce’s twelve-year-old son and a huge Metallica fan, helped us choose the latter two songs. We told him we were looking for more melodic and instrumental music that we could use for the score, rather than the more typical overpoweringly aggressive tracks. For his efforts, Alex got a “heavy metal music consultant” credit on the film’s credits.
3. The film was also a hit with other rock stars. We received praise from Henry Rollins, Marilyn Manson, Dave Grohl, and Eddie Vedder, among others. Many have helped the cause of the West Memphis 3 by spreading the word, staging benefits, and donating to the legal defense fund.
Chapter 4. The Witch’s Spell
1. The FanClub pilot was VH1’s highest-rated debut show of 2000.
Chapter 6. No Remorse
1. Although most Metallica songs are credited to James and Lars, Kirk has received numerous cowriting credits throughout Metallica’s history. Jason, during his fourteen years with the band, received cowriting credits on just three songs.
2. One of the ironies of Metallica’s new approach to songwriting is that it actually stripped Kirk of what had been his defining role in the band, the guy who plays the guitar solos. In the past, his solos had been slotted into nearly finished songs, but the songs that emerged organically during the St. Anger sessions didn’t feel like they needed traditional solos. As we see in Monster, this led to some tension between Kirk and the rest of the band, though he ultimately adapted his style to add color to the songs, rather than clearly demarcated solos.
Chapter 7. Exit Light
1. We’d used intercuts on previous films, most memorably in Paradise Lost, in a sequence that juxtaposes Mark Byers singing with shots of a church barbeque. Besides allowing us to compress time, intercutting improves pacing and adds a new thematic layer to the two individual scenes.
Chapter 8. Enter Night
1. Jon Kamen, the head of @radical.media, is the brother of the late Michael Kamen, a composer who oversaw Metallica’s S&M live album with the San Francisco Symphony.
Chapter 10. Shoot Me Again
1. The tenuousness of our position really hit home when the first trial began. I’ll never forget the weird feeling of walking into court on the first morning and seeing the families and supporters of each side split neatly down the middle. Since by this point we knew most of these people, all eyes turned to see where we would sit, a decision that would reveal our true allegiances. It was like showing up for a wedding and not being able to decide whether it was the bride or groom you knew best. We wound up sitting behind the jury box, because that’s where the cameras were. We were technically on the plaintiffs’ side, but it was clear to everyone that we were there to be near the cameras.
2. This is one of those moments in Monster made possible by the wonders of digital video technology. Although the light was terrible, we could crank up the “gain” on the camera and hang back without getting in his face. If we had been shooting film, we probably would have been unable to capture this scene.
Chapter 11. Visible Kid
1. Another odd thing about this particular moment, as you might have noticed in Monster, is that Phil repeatedly squeezes a tennis ball that he found rolling around in the back of Lars’s car. Was this some sort of subliminal suggestion, a subtle metaphor about Torben’s hold over his son? (The ball did come in handy. After the shoot, everyone walked down a hill to play a long-ball game of catch across a gully.)
Chapter 12. Karmas Burning
1. Four months later, while Megadeth was on a break from touring, Mustaine suffered an unspecified injury to his left arm and was diagnosed with radial neuropathy, or a severely compressed radial nerve, which left him unable to play guitar—even holding a coffee cup was painful. His doctors said he would need intense physical therapy for at least a year, and they weren’t sure how complete the recovery would be. In April 2002, unsure if he’d ever be able to play guitar again, Mustaine disbanded Megadeth after nineteen years. In the summer of 2003, he announced he was recovering well and working on a solo album.
Chapter 13. Seek and Deploy
1. Reiter’s not just talking about “Nothing Else Matters”—he says the ballad backlash began with Ride the Lightning’s “Fade to Black.”
Chapter 14. Welcome Home
1. Because we used two cinematographers, the
first part of Monster, up to when James comes back, has a slightly different look than the rest of the movie. The material that Bob shot is generally more evenly lit and less claustrophobic than Wolfgang’s footage. We didn’t plan it this way, but the change in style worked very well thematically. The film looks darker and more constrained before James leaves and while he’s away, and then becomes lighter and more open when the band is together again.
Chapter 16. To Live Is to Die
1. Although Jason, as you may recall, considered Phil’s presence to be “fucking lame,” Phil apparently had a higher opinion of Jason.
2. The story of the bass players would take one more weirdly symmetric turn a few months later. After extensive auditions, Metallica picked Rob Trujillo, of Ozzy Osbourne’s band, to be their new bass player. A few weeks later, the world learned that Trujillo’s replacement in Ozzy’s band would be … Jason Newsted. So Jason found a way back from the dead, even if it wasn’t exactly the life he had had before.
Chapter 17. Silence No More
1. Cabbie hung around HQ for weeks but reportedly failed to mike Metallica properly the whole time, making all of his “behind the scenes” reports too inaudible to air.
2. In the commentary Bruce and I recorded for the film’s tenth-anniversary DVD, we talked about how we still love that scene and can’t remember why exactly we decided to cut it.
3. Fortunately, many of the babies will find a comfortable afterlife in the heaven known as DVD extras. The Monster DVD may well set a record for number of deleted scenes.
4. Bob had been a member of the Payolas, a Victoria, British Columbia–based band that enjoyed a modicum of critical and commercial success, mostly in Canada, during the ’80s. The band still occasionally reunites to play shows and release new music. Bob also plays with a pickup band on Maui, where he lives.
5. Although the judge was willing to take the unusual step of speaking to us privately, he unfortunately never acted on the information we’d given him.
Chapter 18. Their Aim Is Trujillo
1. Everyone who appears in a documentary typically has to sign a release, a legally binding consent form that allows the filmmakers to use the footage.
2. This is the only time that James ever exerted a direct influence over the content of Some Kind of Monster.
3. During Twiggy’s audition, the boys played a rousing rendition of “Napster of Puppets.”
4. I can understand her shock. I’ve been surprised at how candid James is in interviews. He’s so forthright about his struggles that it sometimes sounds like he’s on a mission to tell everyone he can about what he’s been through and how he emerged a better man.
Chapter 19. The Bell Tolls
1. This scene is another example of how digital video, by being cheap enough to allow for two-camera shoots, has transformed documentary filmmaking. Without a second camera, we would have missed a lot of great reaction shots, and this isn’t the kind of scene that lends itself to “cheating” cutaways.
Chapter 20. Frantic-Tic-Tock
1. When St. Anger was released, a rumor circulated that Clear Channel, the largest radio chain in the U.S., was instructing its stations not to play the album because of the jarring sound of Lars’s snareless snare drum. The rumor was almost certainly false, but for whatever reason, St. Anger did not exactly tear up the nation’s airwaves, despite those radio promos Metallica grudgingly recorded.
2. One important difference between Lennon’s and Hetfield’s therapy experiences is that James went into group therapy with the rest of his band. Bruce likes to say that if the Beatles had submitted to Phil’s process, they might have stayed together a few more years.
3. Bruce told me later that after the band concluded its conference call by deciding to buy the film, Lars turned to him and said, “Who do you love?”
Chapter 21. Monster, Inc.
1. The breasts-in-Rob’s-face shot was the only thing Metallica ever asked us to take out of Some Kind of Monster.
2. True to his word, James did not see the film again until we made him watch it several weeks after its Sundance premiere.
Chapter 22. The End That Will Never End
1. American Spectrum films are not part of the main competition and are therefore ineligible for jury prizes. When I asked why we’d been put in that category, I was told that because Metallica had paid for the film, it was inappropriate to put it in the main competition, since we—and therefore Sundance—might be criticized for practicing “checkbook journalism.”
2. On the eve of Monster’s theatrical release in the summer of 2004, I spoke with Kirk and discovered that he had made copious notes about the film following the Skywalker screening and had made it a point to watch every subsequent cut so that he could give us suggestions, most of which he kept to himself. After a lot of soul-searching, he had ultimately decided that too many of his suggested cuts merely reflected his privacy concerns and could make the film less powerful. “I’m still struggling with it to this day,” he told me, “but I’m willing to sacrifice my privacy for the film’s overall positive message.”
3. A few months later, when I told James about the photo, he told me that he and his wife had just returned from the Caribbean, where they renewed their wedding vows.
4. We took questions after each screening. The only question that came up all three times was whether Dave Mustaine has been able to meet with James like he did with Lars. The answer, as of mid 2004, is no.
5. Two days later, Mark Ordesky, the president of New Line, called to say the company was withdrawing its offer, which his New Line reps at Sundance apparently did not have the authority to tender. Ordesky said New Line was still interested in a service deal, but the film would still need to lose twenty minutes.
Reference in this book to Web sites or other resources as potential sources of information does not mean that the authors or publisher endorse anything that might be said there.
METALLICA: THIS MONSTER LIVES. Copyright © 2004 by Joe Berlinger. Foreword copyright © 2004 by Bruce Sinofsky All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
“Temptation” written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Bob Rock © 2004 Creeping Death Music/EMI Blackwood Music (Canada) Ltd./Mahina Hoku Music Publishing. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
“One” written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich © 1988 Creeping Death Music. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Title page photograph courtesy of Annamaria DiSanto
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ISBN 0-312-33311-0
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eISBN: 978-1-4668-6696-6
First Edition: November 2004
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