THE STRANGER

Even Hell Has Its Heroes

Director Clyde Petersen Digs Deep Into Earth in His New Documentary

By DAVE SEGAL
Jul 19, 2022 at 2:30 pm

It took almost three years longer than expected, but Northwest filmmaker and musician Clyde Petersen has finished Even Hell Has Its Heroes, a 108-minute documentary about the innovative Seattle rock group Earth. The world's inundated with docs about musicians, but Petersen's opus avoids over familiar tropes of the art form and captures the majestic and enigmatic essence of this Pacific Northwest institution with an approach that's as oblique as Earth's music, plus a few moments of levity among the compelling gravity of Earth's conflict-riddled story.

Eschewing talking heads and cameo commentary from high-profile music-biz personalities, Petersen—who's also directed the short film Torrey Pines—instead interviews nearly everyone who's played, produced, and released Earth's heavy and cinematic music. The interviews are invariably interesting and sometimes revelatory, and yes, Earth leader Dylan Carlson talks about his friendship with Kurt Cobain. Petersen cleverly portrays each musician's idiosyncrasies through the settings and actions of their Q&A sessions. What makes Even Hell unique is that Petersen arranged for each musician he interviewed to compose a piece for the soundtrack, and then uses said piece to score their segment.

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