Andrew Dominik’s upcoming documentary This Much I Know To Be True focuses on the creative relationship between Nick Cave and Warren Ellis as they work on the albums, Ghosteen (2019) and Carnage (2021).
The first official trailer can be viewed below. In it, Cave reflects on how his self-image has changed over time.
“Some years ago I would’ve defined myself as a musician or a writer,” he says. “I’m trying to wean myself off those definitions of myself that are about my occupation and see myself as a person, as a husband, as a father – as a husband and father and friend and citizen that makes music and writes stuff rather than the other way around.”
The trailer also includes footage of Ellis, Cave and a string quartet performing the song ‘Lavender Fields’ from last year’s Carnage. The film’s title is taken from the track ‘Balcony Man’, which closes Carnage.
Aside from a long list of film soundtracks, Carnage was the first album attributed to just Cave and Ellis and not Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Cave and Ellis’ relationship with filmmaker Dominik goes back to the 2007 film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, for which they composed the score. Cave also had an on-screen cameo.
Dominik directed the documentary, One More Time With Feeling (2016), which captured Cave and the Bad Seeds recording their 16th studio album, Skeleton Tree, following the death of Cave’s teenage son Arthur.