Nick Cave Made New Film To Avoid Questions About His Son's Death

Nick Cave made a documentary about the making of his new album ‘Skeleton Tree’ so that he would not have to speak to the media about the death of his son.

Cave’s son Arthur died last year aged just 15, when he fell from a cliff at Ovingdean, near the family’s home in Brighton.

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New Zealand director Andrew Dominik, who made the movie, and also movies like ‘Chopper’ and ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’, said that it was through ‘self-preservation’ that Cave decided to speak about his grief through the film.

“Nick went into a newsagent in Brighton and saw a copy of Mojo; he realised he was going to have to promote the record,” he said, speaking at the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

“Arthur had died halfway through making it. And the idea of [promoting] it made him feel sick, because he was going to have to discuss the context of the record with a whole bunch of journalists.

“That prospect was very alarming to him. His instinct in making the film was one of self-preservation: it was a way to talk about what happened, but there was a certain safety in doing it with someone he knew.”

‘Once More Time With Feeling’ features Cave talking about the death of his son, as well as the making of the album.

“Nick deals with everything in life by working,” added Dominik.

“If his heart is broken he can turn it into a song, everything is a grist for the mill. But I don’t think the film, or the songs, helped him with his grief. Perhaps momentarily. But this thing is so big, you can’t even get your arms around it.”

Arthur died in July, 2015, a consequent inquest determining that he had taken LSD for the first time prior to the fall.

Image credits: People/Getty