Kurt Cobain remains an enduring figure in cultural history, his artistic influence transcending time. As a trailblazer in the grunge movement, Cobain’s creative instincts reshaped music’s paradigms, leaving an indelible mark on the cultural sphere.
However, music wasn’t Cobain’s sole passion. He also harboured a keen interest in cinema, displaying an appreciation for a wide array of films. From the revered works of legendary directors like Alfred Hitchcock to cult classics such as John Waters’ Pink Flamingos and Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy, Cobain’s cinematic tastes were diverse and eclectic.
When discussing his admiration of cinema, the grunge star even claimed that, were he not a musician, he would want to be a painter, writer or filmmaker. However, as time passed, he grew disenchanted with modern cinema. “I don’t know,” he mused. “I like movies. I used to like ’em a lot better when I was young. I can’t think of very many movies that I like. I’m usually disappointed by them.”
Although no exhaustive compilation of Cobain’s preferred films exists, many fans and music lovers have pieced together records from different sources. Among the various cinematic picks, there are three from the 1990s that particularly stand out, the first of which is Reservoir Dogs. In fact, Cobain valued the movie so much that he even thanked Quentin Tarantino on 1993’s In Utero, even though the two never met.
Tarantino later spoke about how the two iconic pop culture phenomenons aligned. Speaking on Australian radio station Double J, he said: “There was an aspect of American independent cinema in general, and my movie, Reservoir Dogs, in particular, coincided with the alternative music grunge scene. We were kind of on parallel tracks. We were doing a new type of way to do a movie”.
“People had got sick of the corporatised Hollywood movies of the ’80s and the same with the corporatised music of the ’80s for music,” Tarantino continued. “One thing that’s interesting from Reservoir Dogs, part of the ironic-ness of it, is that we are playing these innocuous ’70s pop songs with this violent crime story.”
Cobain was also drawn to David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch, the bizarre surrealist film about an exterminator who becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs. Considering the fact that his third favourite movie from the ’90s is Jacob’s Ladder, it’s clear that the musical maestro was drawn to all things psychological or artistically abstract.
