Director of Nick Cave film reveals the musician was ‘trapped’ after son’s tragic death

DIRECTOR Andrew Dominik reveals why Nick Cave chose to share the “state of things” with fans in a film made after his teenage son Arthur died in a cliff fall.

Nick Cave chose to make a film to explain the “state of things” after son’s death. Picture: Supplied

NICK Cave chose to make a film to share the “state of things” with fans in the wake of his son’s death, according to Australian director Andrew Dominik.

Fans already expect the One More Time With Feeling movie to be emotionally intense, filmed just months after Arthur’s tragic cliff fall a year ago.

Cave and his band the Bad Seeds resumed the recording of their new record Skeleton Key as the Cave family grieved their loss.

Cave and wife Susie suffered the “catastrophic” loss of their son Arthur last year. Picture: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images.

Dominik, who worked with Cave on his film The Assassination of Jesse James, was among the musician and author’s circle who helped support the family.

The director believes a “trapped” Cave decided to do the film in an attempt to move forward.

“When Nick approached me about making a film around the recording and performing of the new Bad Seeds album, I’d been seeing quite a lot of him as we rallied around him and his family at the time of his son’s death,” Dominik said in a statement released on Thursday.

Arthur Cave, 15, tragically fell to his death from a cliff in Brighton in July 2015.

Director Andrew Dominik believes Cave decided to make the film in an attempt to move forward.

“My immediate response was ‘Why do you want to do this?’

“Nick told me that he had some things he needed to say, but he didn’t know who to say them to.

“The idea of a traditional interview, he said, was simply unfeasible but that he felt a need to let the people who cared about his music understand the basic state of things.

“It seemed to me that he was trapped somewhere and just needed to do something — anything — to at least give the impression of forward movement.”

As already revealed in a trailer released last week, the film has been shot in a unique 3D and black and white format despite Cave telling the director “I f ... ing hate 3D”.

Dominik explained the format reflected the sound of the record and Cave’s “paralysis” as he wrestled with grief.

“I felt that the stark black-and-white and the haunted drama of these 3D images perfectly addressed the disembodied sound of the record and the weird sense of paralysis that Nick seemed to exist in at the time,” he said.

In the trailer, Cave’s narration reflects on the changes wrought by the “catastrophic” event of the death of his 15-year-old boy, who fell from a cliff in Brighton near where the rocker and writer lives with his wife Susie and their family.

“Most of us don’t want to change, really. I mean why should we? What we do want is sort of modifications on the original model,” Cave says.

“n public discourse. “But what happens when an event occurs that is so catastrophic that we just change?

“We change from the known person to an unknown person. So that when you look at yourself in the mirror do you recognise the person that you were? That the person inside the skin is a different person?”

Cave has seen the film with the director admitting his response was “conflicted”.

“How could it not be? In the end he said, ‘leave it as it is’ — which we did. He said that it was obviously ‘made with love’ — which it was and finally, ‘to make sure they see it in 3D’.”

One More Time With Feeling will be screened for one night only worldwide on September 8 with Skeleton Key released the next day.