20,000 Days on Earth Page #9

Synopsis: Drama and reality combine in a fictitious 24 hours in the life of musician and international cultural icon Nick Cave. With startlingly frank insights and an intimate portrayal of the artistic process, the film examines what makes us who we are, and celebrates the transformative power of the creative spirit.
Production: Drafthouse Films
  Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 8 wins & 15 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.5
Metacritic:
83
Rotten Tomatoes:
95%
NOT RATED
Year:
2014
97 min
Website
1,043 Views


You want some?

You wanna f*** with me? OK.

(THEY CHUCKLE)

You wanna play games? OK.

Come on.

OK. You wanna play rough? OK!

- Say hello to my little friend!

- Say hello to my little friend!

(GUNFIRE)

# Ya, ya, ya, ya!

# Ya, ya, ya, ya!

# Ya, ya, ya, ya!

# Ya, ya, ya, ya!

# Ya, ya, ya, ya! #

(CROWD CHEERING)

# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

# Oh, no, no, no... #

(GUITAR STARTS UP)

# Well, in come the Devil

# Said, "I've come to take you down

Mr Stagger Lee"

# Well, those were the last words

that the Devil said

# Cos Stag put four holes

# In his mother...f***ing

# Head

# Ya, ya, ya, ya!

# Ya, ya, ya, ya!

# Ya, ya, ya, ya! #

(CROWD CHEER)

(CHEERING)

(CHEERING AND WHISTLING)

(CHEERING FADES)

(SEAGULLS CRY)

NICK:
The song is heroic,

because the song confronts death.

The song is immortal and bravely

stares down our own extinction.

The song emerges from the spirit world

with a true message.

One day, I will tell you

how to slay the dragon.

(CHEERING)

(CROWD CHEERS)

(SONG STARTS)

NICK:
All of our days are numbered.

We cannot afford to be idle.

To act on a bad idea

is better than to not act at all...

...because the worth of the idea

never becomes apparent until you do it.

Sometimes this idea can be

the smallest thing in the world,

a little flame that you hunch over

and cup with your hand

and pray will not be extinguished

by all the storm that howls about it.

If you can hold on to that flame,

great things can be constructed around it

that are massive and powerful

and world-changing...

...all held up by the tiniest of ideas.

- (MUSIC PLAYING)

- (CROWD CHEERS)

# The problem was

# She had a little black book

# And my name

# It was written

# On every page

# Well, a girl's got to make ends meet

# Especially down on Jubilee Street

# I ought to practise what I preach

# These days I go down town

# In my tie and tails

# I got a foetus

# On a leash

# I am alone now

# I am beyond recriminations

# The curtains are shut

# The furniture has gone

# I am transforming

# I am vibrating

# I am glowing

# Yeah, look at me now

# I'm transforming

# I'm vibrating

# Look at me now

# Yes, I am flying

# I'm vibrating

# Look at me now

# Yeah

# Yeah

# I'm transforming

# I'm vibrating

# Look at me now

# I am flying

# I'm vibrating

# Look at me now

# I am flying

# I am glowing

# Look at me now

# I'm transforming

# I'm vibrating

# Look at me now. #

(CHEERING)

NICK:
In the end, I'm not interested

in that which I fully understand.

The words I have written over the years

are just a veneer.

There are truths that lie

beneath the surface of the words...

truths that rise up without warning,

like the humps of a sea monster

and then disappear.

What performance and song is to me

is finding a way to tempt the monster

to the surface,

to create a space,

where the creature can break through

what is real and what is known to us.

This shimmering space,

where imagination and reality intersect...

...this is where all love

and tears and joy exist.

This is the place.

This is where we live.

(SONG ENDS)

Published 25/10/2014

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Nick Cave

Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional film actor, best known as the frontman of the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Cave's music is generally characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety of influences, and lyrical obsessions with death, religion, love and violence.Born and raised in rural Victoria, Cave studied art before turning to music in the 1970s. As frontman of the Boys Next Door (later renamed the Birthday Party), he became a central figure in Melbourne's burgeoning post-punk scene. The band relocated to London in 1980, but, disillusioned by life there, evolved towards a darker, more challenging sound, and acquired a reputation as "the most violent live band in the world". The Birthday Party is regarded as a major influence on gothic rock, and Cave, with his shock of black hair, baritone singing voice and pale, emaciated look, was described in the media as a poster boy for the genre. After the break-up of the Birthday Party in 1983, Cave formed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Much of the band's early material was set in a mythic American Deep South, drawing on spirituals and Delta blues, while Cave's preoccupation with Old Testament notions of good versus evil culminated in what has been called his signature song, "The Mercy Seat" (1988). The 1996 album Murder Ballads features "Where the Wild Roses Grow", a duet with Kylie Minogue, Cave's most commercially successful single to date. The band has released 16 studio albums, the most recent being 2016's Skeleton Tree. Cave formed the garage rock group Grinderman in 2006, which has since released two albums. Cave co-wrote, scored and starred in the 1988 Australian prison film Ghosts... of the Civil Dead (1988), directed by John Hillcoat. He also wrote the screenplay for Hillcoat's bushranger film The Proposition (2005), and composed the soundtrack with frequent collaborator Warren Ellis. The pair's film score credits include The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), The Road (2009), Lawless (2012), and Hell or High Water (2016). Cave is the subject of several films, including the semi-fictional "day in the life" 20,000 Days on Earth (2014), and the documentary One More Time with Feeling (2016). Cave has also released two novels: And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989) and The Death of Bunny Munro (2009). Cave's songs have been covered by a wide range of artists, including Johnny Cash, Metallica and Arctic Monkeys. He was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007. more…

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    "20,000 Days on Earth" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Jul 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/20,000_days_on_earth_1616>.

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