NICK CAVE MERCY ON ME SC

One of our Gosh! Best of 2017 titles! No stranger to the biographies of troubled musicians (see his award-winning Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness), Reinhard Kleist’s chronicle of the life of singer/songwriter Cave is similarly unconventional in its approach. Mixing fact and fiction, Kleist’s narrative weaves the characters and stories of Cave’s (and the Bad Seeds’) songs through the story: we sit with the ill-fated occupier of The Mercy Seat; we drive to CERN; we go Where the Wild Roses Grow. It all works toward a dreamy and evocative experience, much like the titular subject, and also much like him it emphasizes romance and mood over literal truths. Don’t get hung up on that though: Kleist is a master storyteller, and the ride is as entertaining as all hell, described by Cave as “Closer to the truth than any biography, that’s for sure!