Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel Blu-ray Movie Review

Escaping the black Hole of addiction.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 12, 2012

The internet has created all sorts of interrelationships that would have been generally unthinkable little more than a generation ago. The internet was still really in its nascent stages (at least in terms of public use) in 1994 when Nirvana's front man Kurt Cobain committed suicide. Kurt had been fascinated by another famous Seattleite who had had her own brushes with questioning authority, actress Frances Farmer, and as many regular readers of my reviews know, I spent decades unraveling myths and legends (and, frankly, outright lies) that had been told about Farmer, with the end result that my research has been widely accepted as having restored some semblance of truth to Farmer's legacy and bumpy life story. (You can read a summation of that research here). That research first hit the internet at almost the exact same time as Kurt committed suicide, and I have been contacted virtually weekly by Nirvana fans ever since asking for more details on the Cobain – Farmer connection. Many fans of Courtney Love and Hole have also contacted me through the years, sometimes passing on the specious information that Frances Bean Cobain was named after Farmer (she wasn't), or asking about the Farmer dress that Courtney supposedly wore at her wedding to Cobain (I don't know where it is, sorry). This weird concatenation of my research with musicians I probably wouldn't have had much reason to even listen to (sorry again, grunge is just not my "thing", aurally speaking) has been an object lesson in the literal "webs" that the so-called WWW has spun since the internet became so prevalent.

In a somewhat different vein (no pun intended, considering the addiction angle of this documentary), it’s the connections that give Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Drummer Patty Schemel a lot of its interest. Without grunge’s Royal Couple of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love stumbling through the wings of this story, Patty’s arc of insta-stardom in a rock band, ensuing addiction problems and ultimate hard won sobriety are a tale too often told, full of sound and fury, but signifying little other than rock stars seem genetically prone to making the same stupid mistakes over and over again. Schemel was the drummer of Love’s band Hole when Hole seemed—for a while, anyway—to be almost as relevant as Nirvana ever was.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about this oft told story is the fact that Schemel herself documented so much of it, although rather unwittingly at the time. She had been given a minicam and decided to take it with her as Hole toured in support of Live Through This, and a lot of that footage makes it into Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel. This up close and personal backstage footage is really riveting stuff, showing the absolute chaos of the Hole tour as well as sometimes unflattering portraits of the various members, Schemel included. There’s also some fantastic tidbits as well, including wonderful footage of a seemingly happy go lucky Kurt Cobain frolicking with his daughter Frances (not named after Frances Farmer, lest anyone forget).

Most people probably don’t know who Schemel is (and/or was), and even Love, who claims that “Patty will always be my drummer”, shows a lack of awareness when she can’t recall who performed on various sessions. That weird sort of coexisting anonymity and stardom that comes from being a background player in a major rock band is explored at least tangentially here and is perhaps one of the few innovative things Hit So Hard has to offer the genre of rockumentary. Schemel’s spiral into addiction and slow, tortuous recovery is nothing new, and in fact a crawl of other afflicted musicians (evidently all part of a “Saturn’s Revenge” curse that accompanies Saturn’s 27 year orbit) proves just how prevalent the basic outlines of Schemel’s story really are.

Director P. David Ebersole does a good job of intercutting Patty’s home movies with a lot of interview footage, including everyone from Patty herself to her brother Larry to Courtney Love to perhaps unexpected hangers-on like Sarah Vowell (uncharacteristically ineloquent). The problem with Hit So Hard is that it is at once a story we’ve seen before in one guise or another and it is simultaneously about a player who through no fault of her own hasn’t become a household name. That leaves the main interest to a smaller group who were Hole fans or an even smaller group who idolizes female drummers. One of the most fascinating thing in this whole documentary is the brief homage to various women percussionists that adorns the closing credits. It’s a disappointingly small group, evidence perhaps that Hit So Hard is going to have a hard time finding its target demographic.

Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. Expectations need to be set realistically low for this feature, the bulk of which offers Super 8 footage culled from Patty's own "home" (i.e., tour) movies. These are all pretty ragged looking, with bleeding colors, fuzzy imagery and just all around indistinct clarity. Unfortunately, the contemporary interview footage doesn't look much better and almost looks like it was sourced from 8mm, at least some of the time. About the only times things click into something akin to real HD clarity is a few scenes of still photographs. Otherwise, this is a relentlessly soft and indistinct offering that never really capitalizes on the potential of HD.

Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which is fine as far as it goes, but the problem is it never really goes very far, due mostly to the fact that by far the biggest part of this piece is talking heads segments. When we do get some concert or rehearsal footage of Hole, it's inevitably quickly interrupted so that the surround channels rarely get a really fierce workout. The good news here is that fidelity is excellent and those few moments of Hole provide a thrashing good time, especially with regard to the low end. The confessionals and interviews all sound just fine, albeit obviously very narrow and shallow.

Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Patty's Home Movies (SD; 1:04:00) features 24 snippets culled from Patty's vast archive. These include a lot of touring footage, including Australia, Japan, Hawaii, Hollywood, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Japan, and Paris.


• Q & A at Museum of Modern Art with Hole (SD; 9:52) is a post-screening confab with Ebersole, Love, Schemel and several others. This has pretty spotty video and inconsistent audio.


• Hole Makes a Fan a Star (SD; 7:22) is an interview with Elizabeth Mann, who has a "bit part" in the documentary.


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:16)


• Audio Commentary with Patty and P. David (Director). The two are kind of fitful commentators, but there's some good info here about how the film was assembled and how Patty's unwitting use of her minicam on tour provided the bulk of the film's archival footage.

Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel has one great asset to its credit, namely Schemel herself. She's invariably bright and often very funny (she's become a dog sitter and note how she uses little miniature breed as a "Kleenex" when she's discussing how "sad" her fall from fame has been). The problem here is that the story of Hit So Hard is (unfortunately) same old, same old as far as the world of rock 'n' roll goes (there's a reason that famous triumvirate of sex and rock includes drugs). Hit So Hard probably offers the most interest as a sort of time capsule for a relatively brief moment when Hole seemed to matter, and some of the auxiliary interviews are admittedly fascinating, though not always due to their relationship to Schemel's story. This Blu-ray offers pretty shoddy looking video (at least some of which can be traced to the elements from Schemel's own home movies), and while the audio is good, there's not much uninterrupted music to really exploit the lossless environment. Hole and Nirvana fans may want to check this out as a rental.