Nick Cave praises rock writer Larry “Ratso” Sloman’s in the trailer for I Want Everything, an upcoming short film that documents Ratso’s foray into recording music at the age of 70.
“Ratso is a kind of living exercise in perversity,” Cave says in the trailer. “And this is very much a Ratso thing to do; to put out a strong album like this, I think it’s an incredibly audacious move on Ratso’s behalf and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
I Want Everything, premiering at the Brooklyn Film Festival later this month, details the making of Ratso’s 2019 LP Stubborn Heart, which the writer recorded after decades in the rock trenches and co-writing memoirs by Anthony Kiedis, Howard Stern and Mike Tyson.
The Paul Szynol-directed short film features appearances by Cave, the Bad Seeds’ Warren Ellis and Jim Sclavunos, author Jonathan Lethem and the late Hal Willner, who helped Ratso in his musical endeavor. Cave features on Stubborn Heart’s “Our Lady of Light,” while Ratso also records a cover of Cave’s “Skeleton Tree” as a tribute to Cave’s late son Arthur.
“The immediate draw was Ratso’s music,” Syznol tells Rolling Stone of the film. “I first heard him and the band perform at a small venue in Bushwick, and I had no idea what to expect, but the songs spoke to me almost immediately—they have a weathered wisdom and raw poetry that give them a unique texture. The second draw is Ratso himself: he is a postcard from all the best parts of New York history, a time before vast commercialization and uniformity, and he is a doorway to some of the treasures of music and culture, from Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen to Coney Island and old school seltzer bottles.”
I Want Everything will premiere as part of the now-online Brooklyn Film Festival, which begins May 29th and is offering free registration to view the films.