This Much I Know to Be True

Andrew Dominik's second film about Nick Cave, following One More Time with Feeling from 2016. The earlier one was shot in the immediate aftermath of his son's death; this one shows five years later, a point at which work has become possible again. It records Cave and Warren Ellis performing songs from the albums Ghosteen and Carnage for the first time. Filming took place in the spring of 2021 in London and Brighton, with singers and a string quartet alongside them. Marianne Faithfull appears briefly. Its most striking quality is how it renders the division of labour between the two men. Cave writes and sings the song; Ellis decides where the sound is going. Rather than explain this, the camera captures the moments when one of them looks at the other. Dominik is not making a concert film. He is recording how a partnership works. Who it is for: listeners of Nick Cave and anyone who enjoys watching a creative process. Who it is not for: viewers wanting a conventional music documentary or a life story, since the film never looks backward.