20,000 Days on Earth

2014 1h 37m EN

👍

7.0

SOLID

★7.0TMDB · 218

DocumentaryDramaMusic

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A semi-fictionalized documentary about a day in the life of Australian musician Nick Cave's persona.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Nick Cave
Self
Warren Ellis
Self
Blixa Bargeld
Self
Susie Bick
Self
Arthur Cave
Self
Earl Cave
Self
Kirk Lake
Archivist
Darian Leader
Self

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Jane Pollard
Writers: Nick Cave, Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard
Languages: English
Countries: United Kingdom, United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

ERA

Did you know

Released 12 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: United Kingdom, United States of America.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Jane Pollard, shot by Erik Wilson. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Nick Cave. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Jonathan Amos shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and Blixa Bargeld carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt2920540 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Jane Pollard directs. Erik Wilson behind the camera. Nick Cave scores. Jonathan Amos cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United Kingdom, United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 12 years ago.
2International production across 2 countries: United Kingdom, United States of America.
3Directed by Jane Pollard, shot by Erik Wilson. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Nick Cave. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Jonathan Amos shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and Blixa Bargeld carry the top of the cast.
7IMDB entry: tt2920540 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Cinematography: Erik Wilson
Original score: Nick Cave
Editing: Jonathan Amos
Makeup / hair: Martina Luisetti
Runtime: 97 min · 1h 37m
Status: Released
Original language: EN
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: 20,000 Days on Earth (2014)

Awards

Sundance World Cinema Documentary Editing Award
Grierson Awards
Sundance World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Jane Pollard

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

furious_iz2018-04-22
★ 8/10
Simultaneously one of the most pretentious and brilliant things I have ever seen. If you love Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, you will love this. If you find his music dark and too much hard work, stay away. 8/10
tmdb280390232022-08-28
★ 6/10
I wouldn’t hesitate to call Nick Cave a genius, especially not after watching 20,000 Days on Earth – and yet, the beauty of this biofictional film, co-written by Cave with directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, is its humility. Most movies about musicians, particularly rockstars, suffer from what we might call The Amadeus Syndrome; in contrast, 20,000 Days is a refreshing reminder that you must let inspiration find you working – and by ‘you’ I mean anyone; if Cave himself is a genius, it's not because all his ideas are right, but because he has the right idea about all ideas: “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”. This certainly is a film about the thought as well as the deed. We see Cave and the Bad Seeds working in the studio and performing onstage, but the movie reaches farther back, to the genesis of a song and even what lies before that – the ‘pre-song,’ if you will. We learn that everything – including “every secret, sacred moment that exists between a husband and a wife” – may be “cannibalized and ground up and spat out the other side in the form of a song, inflated and distorted and monstrous.” We learn also that songs are born from chaos (“Counterpoint is the key. Putting two disparate images beside each other and seeing which way the sparks fly”), “wild and unbroken,” and it’s the songwriter’s task to grab a hold of them in this protean state and not let go until they “become domesticated … something familiar and compliant.” This is no mean feat, considering that Cave’s songs aren’t your typical ‘verse-bridge-chorus’ compositions; “Higgs Boson Blues”, featured in the film, is an outstanding example of a stream of consciousness-type song whose greatest strength is its apparent spontaneity – and indeed, if Cave wasn’t reading the lyrics off a notebook as he sings them, we might be tricked into believing he’s improvising them right there on the spot. The movie as a whole is deceivingly effortless – one of those small ideas around which something great has been constructed.