METALLICA: This Monster Lives (St. Martin’s Press, 336 pages, $24.95) offers a surprisingly candid behind-the-scenes look at the making of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s rock documentary METALLICA: Some Kind of Monster, released earlier this year by IFC Films.

“With nearly three years of production (and more than 1600 hours of footage), the life of our film,” says Berlinger, “closely mirrored the tumultuous life of the band. Changing from a promotional film to a TV show to almost not happening at all, we never thought it would become the feature film it did: a meditation on the creative process, and an often shockingly honest look at the band’s struggles with addiction, personnel changes, inner (and outer) demons, backlash from fans, and near-total disintegration. At the same time that Metallica was going through the most profound personal and professional changes of their twenty-year history, my filmmaking partner and I were having our own collaborative and existential crisis.”

Joe Berlinger has kindly consented to allow our readers to download a PDF version of Chapter 5 (synopsized below) from the book he co-wrote with Greg Milner, which hits stores November 16.

Chapter 5 — "Safe and Warm"
Slowly emerging from my post­Blair Witch depression and looking for work, I remembered the Metallica movie idea and put in a call to Lars. Lars felt like it might finally be the right time to make some kind of film project happen. I re-teamed with Bruce and the production of Monster began. The project was intended to be an infomercial to be used to help boost album sales, but I convinced Metallica and Phil Towle, the therapist the band was working with to help them navigate the departure of their bass player, to allow their therapy sessions to be filmed. Having started this film just a few months after crashing on Blair Witch 2, Phil picked up on my fragile emotional state. He offered me a private session with him, creating an ethical crisis for me and the making of the film, and marking the start of the blurring of the line between subject and filmmakers that was difficult to navigate throughout this process.

Download PDF version of Chapter 5

From the book METALLICA: This Monster Lives: The Inside Story of Some Kind of Monster by Joe Berlinger with Greg Milner. Copyright by Joe Berlinger and reprinted with permission from St. Martin’s Press, LLC.