Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the documentary directed by Brett Morgen, doesn't air on HBO until May 4, but we have the first look at what will certainly be an emotional film.
Using never-before-seen home videos, interviews and family photos, the documentary takes a deep look into the life of the troubled rocker. Rolling Stone has even called it "the most intimate rock doc ever." Morgen uses animation to fill in the last few years of Kurt Cobain's life, but it's the footage of the Nirvana frontman playing with his baby daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, and wife Courtney Love that leave a chill behind in the two-and-a-half-minute clip.
Growing up in an unstable family environment, Cobain seemingly couldn't handle the pressures of fame and family.
"I said, 'You better buckle up because you are not ready for this,'" says his mother, Wendy Cobain, in the trailer.
"He wanted normalcy. He wanted the mom, the dad, the kids and everything happy," a voiceover says. "But then he didn't."
The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where Frances Bean, an executive producer and visual artist on the documentary, and her mom reunited on the red carpet. They had feuded in the past and Courtney even lost custody of her daughter in 2007, then 17, who went to live with her grandmother.
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck is the first authorized film about the singer and was made with the help and cooperation of his family.
"So so sad yet so uplifting, beautiful and gorgeous," Love tweeted after the film premiered, telling her daughter, "Your daddy would be so proud of you baby. thank u."
Morgen began working on the project eight years ago, when he assumed that there would be limited materials with which to work.
"Like most people, when I started, I figured there would be limited amounts of fresh material to unearth. However, once I stepped into Kurt's archive, I discovered over 200 hours of unreleased music and audio, a vast array of art projects (oil paintings, sculptures), countless hours of never-before-seen home movies, and over 4000 pages of writings that together help paint an intimate portrait of an artist who rarely revealed himself to the media," he was quoted as saying.
Kurt died at age 27 in his native Seattle on April 8, 1994. His death, which was ruled a suicide, was one of the most shocking in music history.