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Carmen Cookson-Hills and Tim Ursuliak have been in Nelson, B.C., after they obtained a shocking e mail that might in the end change their life.
It was 2019 and the Lacombe couple have been celebrating Cookson-Hills’ thirtieth birthday when she checked her Fb web page. There was a message from Craig Nuttycombe, a singer-songwriter from California. It was a pleasant response to a message Cookson-Hills and Ursuliak had despatched him in 2013 or 2014. They’d turn into obsessive about studying extra in regards to the singer after discovering an album he made within the late Sixties as a part of the duo Lambert and Nuttycombe on an internet site specializing in hard-to-find music. They have been taken by the harmonies and pastoral lyrics of the earnest folks songs. In order that they despatched him the Fb equal of a fan letter, and it sat unread for greater than 5 years.
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“Tim could be very level-headed and I get very excitable,” Cookson-Hills says. “We had simply gone to the farmers’ market and got here again to the motel and I checked out my telephone and there was a message from Craig Nuttycombe and I bear in mind throwing my telephone throughout the room and saying ‘Tim, you received’t consider this!’”
On the time, the couple had no concept that Nuttycombe would finally turn into the topic of their debut feature-length documentary. At first, they have been simply long-distance pals speaking by way of e mail and letters. However they finally went to go to him at his cellular residence outdoors of Los Angeles and commenced studying the whatever-happened-to particulars of his story. Finally, Ursuliak simply requested him outright if they might make a movie about him.
“His response to Tim asking him if we may make a film was ‘Why would you need to make a film about me? I don’t know if I might be good at that,’” says Cookson-Hills. “‘Effectively, that’s precisely why we need to make a film about you since you’re the kind of one that doesn’t need one made about you.’”
That was the common-or-garden beginnings of It’s Only a Lifetime: A Portrait of Craig Nuttycombe, an affectionate fly-on-the-wall documentary shot over three weeks when the couple stayed with the musician at his residence in November 2021. Whereas there are hallmarks of the “where-are-they-now?” subgenre of documentaries – comparable to 2012’s Looking for Sugarman – Only a Lifetime unfolds like a delicate love letter to the person, solely sometimes dipping into the previous tragedies of his life and the unfulfilled promise of his music profession.
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Nuttycombe partnered with the troubled Denis Lambert in 1967 when each lived in Los Angeles. They recorded their debut At House for A&M Data, a stripped-down album with acoustic guitar and voice produced by David Anderle, Glyn Johns, and Chad Stuart. After being dropped by A&M, they signed with one other label and recorded a follow-up, As You Will, in 1973 earlier than parting methods.
The duo was thought of by some to be the Simon & Garfunkel of the West Coast and so they loved average success opening for acts comparable to Van Morrison and Canned Warmth. However the band’s momentum was at all times hampered by Lambert’s heroin dependancy.
It’s Only a Lifetime doesn’t dwell on the darkness of the story. Lambert dedicated suicide within the late Nineties, however that is by no means talked about within the movie. The story of Lambert and his struggles unfolds casually in dialog alongside different darkish passages in Nuttycombe’s life, together with the overdose loss of life of his brother.
“Whereas Craig is extremely open, there may be quite a lot of bitterness about the place his musical profession may have gone,” Ursuliak says. “There may be quite a lot of emotional baggage tied up along with his relationship along with his previous musical associate. So it was strolling that high quality line of acknowledging these feelings however making an attempt to be respectful of how a lot we’re digging into typically fairly painful reminiscences.”
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“Daily, he would quote Denis and it may very well be one thing completely innocuous,” Cookson-Hills says. “He thinks about him rather a lot and there’s a lot of affection however there was additionally that deep disappointment. Once we have been enhancing it, Craig stated, ‘The entire thing will not be going to be about Lambert and Nuttycombe, proper?’”
Ursuliak and Cookson-Hills married in 2016 however have identified one another since they have been in highschool and bonded over a mutual love of music and movie. Ursuliak studied movie whereas Cookson-Hills studied English in school in Pink Deer, the place they made an experimental narrative movie collectively. For the previous seven years, they’ve additionally been making Tremendous-8 residence motion pictures. However this was their first feature-length movie and enhancing it right down to 90 minutes was no small feat. The couple amassed 57 hours of footage whereas staying with Nuttycombe for 3 weeks.
“He was actually good about being on digicam,” Cookson-Hills says. “We’d begin filming at 9 within the morning after he made breakfast and we’d maintain going till 9 at night time.”
So whereas the usually unhappy story of Lambert and Nuttycombe is roofed, most of It’s Only a Lifetime focuses on what the musician is as much as lately on the age of 77. On Friday, the documentary will display as a part of the Third ACTion Movie Competition, devoted to movies that supply a constructive portrait of getting older.
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After splitting from Lambert, Nuttycombe continued his profession as a solo act, though he by no means fulfilled the promise of his previous duo. His post-Lambert profession is chronicled, however a lot of the movie revolves across the musician’s day-to-day life and showcases his humour and resilience, whether or not strolling his canine, volunteering at a chicken sanctuary, philosophizing about rest room paper or providing a good impression of Mr. Rogers.
“It’s the kind of film the place nothing actually occurs,” says Ursuliak. “It’s a hangout film. It has some rhythm and momentum going the place perhaps you’ll get a slice-of-life scene and you then would get a musical efficiency scene and perhaps you meet a brand new character after which perhaps you return to a different slice of life. Admittedly, it’s pretty gradual however, hopefully, there are emotional arcs and sufficient altering of tempo to maintain the curiosity.”
It’s Simply A Lifetime: A Portrait of Craig Nuttycombe will open the Third ACTion Movie Competition on March 22 at 7 p.m. at Competition Corridor. The competition runs till March 24. Go to thirdactionfilmfest.ca.
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