Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman Story (David Ferino, Robert Bralver 2011): USA

Reviewed by Jan Mclaughlin at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman storey is an arresting biographical portrait of the band Morphine’s front man. The film opens with TV footage of Kurt Loder reporting for MTV “one plays drums, one plays 2 saxes and one plays a two string bass, together they call themselves Morphine and there’s is a sound like no other”. Boston based Mark Sandman pioneered low-rock, a stripped down lo-fi sound with an aggressive bass.

From Newton Massachutes, Sandman endured the death of both his younger brothers as he struggled to become a musician. Just when his unique and sultry sound found an audience Sandman suffers a fatal heartattack on stage in Palestrina Italy in 1999 at the age of 46.

The director/producers Robert Bralver, David Ferino and Jeff Brodway tell Mark Sandman’s storey with a fluidly edited mix of interviews, concert footage, TV appearances and family home movies. The music of Morphine compliment’s this in the soundtrack. Among those appearing in the film are Ben Harper, Les Claypool (Primus), Matt Watt ( The Stooges), Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age),  Morphine band members Dana Colley (baritone sax) and Billy Conway (drums) and surviving family members Robert and Guitelle Sandman (his parents), sister Martha Holmes and girlfriend Sabine Hrechdakian.

Sandman’s parents speak of an artist and unconventional son wanting unconditional love. His dad gave him an ultimatum work, college or go. ” so he left in a blinding snow storm”. They didn’t hear from him until he became gravely ill in Brazil and came home.

Morphine was found in 1989 and the band had one rule. Each member had to be able to carry their own gear into the venue in one trip without help. This must have helped contribute to the stripped down sound. The bands manager Deb Klien said ” they never went Hollywood if anything Hollywood went Morphine”. There music could be heard on soundtracks for film (Dreamworks) and television ( The Sopranos). Morphine starts to play larger and larger venues,  there is footage in Italy, France and Brazil and impressive is how Sandman addresses the audience in the native language’s.

This documentry  is super informative if you are a fan of Morphine. I was always under the impression that Sandman had died a drug related death due to the bands name. Turns out he picked the name because the word Morphine comes from the word Morpheus who is the God of dreams. This film brought a better understanding to Sandman’s poetic lyrics for me. Hopefully Cure for Pain will introduce the music to a new generation of listeners.