“Although almost every frame and every sound in One More Time with Feeling seems to be in some sense about Arthur Cave's death, and although its last shot is of the clifftop, sea beyond it, where his life ended, followed by the sound of Arthur and Earl singing over the credits—a song they wrote the music for with their father called “Deep Water”—the film never directly addresses what has happened. If you didn't already know, all you'd initially realize is that the people on-screen are reeling in the wake of a monumental but unspecified trauma. Seventy-seven minutes pass before Arthur's name is spoken aloud. To me, this only adds to the film's dignity and power and honesty. But others seem to have felt differently, even implying that an obvious connection between the details of Nick Cave's life and this tragedy has been buried or sidestepped. Here is an excerpt from the New York Times review of the movie: Even after the son's name is mentioned, the drug-related circumstances of his death are not. Nor is the fact that Mr. Cave was once addicted to heroin. And here is the review from Variety, where the same kind of logic, to me an offensively wrongheaded one, is made more explicit: [T]here's something arguably cagey and protective about the way the basic facts of what happened are left out of the movie. We never learn how Arthur died: High on an overly hefty dose of LSD (and marijuana as well), he reportedly “freaked out” before falling off a cliff in Brighton, England, near their home. The movie achieves a quality of poetic loss by leaving out these details, and by never showing us a picture of Arthur. But given that Cave has admitted to his own intense battle with drug abuse (he is now clean), something seems amiss in his never remotely confronting the issue of whether he feels in any way responsible for the death of Arthur. A week or so after the end of the Australian tour, I send Cave an e-mail with links to these reviews, asking for his thoughts. After he has noted, “I don't want to give too much oxygen to the matter of responsibility because it raises a point that only someone who knows nothing about parenting, drug-taking or bereavement would suggest,” he replies like this: “Most of the time, Susie and I try to stay clear-eyed about the whole thing, that it was a terrible, senseless, tragic accident, that could happen to any high-spirited, curious young man. We definitely don't attach any sense of morality to it. But grief has a way of turning you against yourself and you can find yourself indulging in all sorts of irrational and self-destructive thoughts—self-pity, self-blame—because they form a direct connection to the small but present part of you that just wants to die. But we are vigilant with each other about this sort of thinking, I watch out for Susie and she watches out for me, because even though we lost Arthur we are still parents, and as parents, we still have our work to do. I have to say that our family was and remains a very loud, lively happy place. Things are softer now with Arthur gone, because he was just so completely vibrant, but we remain extremely close, and it's that closeness that's pretty much made it possible to get up and go on tour and all the rest of it.” Not that it should make a difference in pushing back at the noxious implications of those reviews, but perhaps it's somehow useful to relay some of the real details that came out during Arthur Cave's inquest. That afternoon, he and a friend met at a local windmill to take LSD for the first time. The friend had Googled the effects the previous evening. By the windmill, they debated whether to even go ahead. But they did. As the trip went bad, the two of them became separated. At one point, Arthur texted another friend. “Where am I?” he asked. Later, he appears to have been walking home along the coastline. People in nearby traffic saw him staggering close to the cliff's edge, and then disappear from sight. ”
