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Paradise Lost, a film ‘about heavy metal on trial as much as the kids accused in the film’, according to Berlinger. Since then there had been vague discussions about making a Metallica documentary movie, but ‘they’d always have the excuse, “We’re not ready to pull the curtain back”’, recalled Sinofsky. ‘As it turned out, the time that we were invited in, in March of 2001, they were at their most vulnerable, they were at their all-time low, at a time that you would expect that nobody would allow a camera crew – especially a crew like us who make very in-depth films. But they invited us in, gave us complete access; never told us, “We have a meeting now, so you can’t come in.” Every door was open, nothing was ever locked. We were never asked to leave. They treated us, in terms of access, better than any other project that we’ve been involved in.’

When they continued filming throughout the fall-out from James’ decision to lay down tools and seek psychiatric help, the film now transmogrified into something else entirely: a close-up study of people in crisis. Named Some Kind of Monster after one of the new tracks, the most surprising thing about this documentary full of shocks was that Metallica allowed it to be made at all. But then this was the new era of reality TV. Hetfield was still ensconced in his prolonged rehab programme when the first episodes of a groundbreaking new TV series called The Osbournes began airing in the USA – a phenomenon that had not escaped the Ulrich radar any more than it had anyone else’s in 2002. As the main driver behind the film project, Lars’ instincts to push Metallica towards the latest trends proved to be inspired this time, even though he could not have imagined how differently the film would eventually turn out. When it was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in February 2004, film critics were so impressed that they put it forward for ‘Official Selection’. Some music critics predictably compared it to the spoof 1980s ‘rockumentary’ This is Spinal Tap. But that was to miss the point entirely. Not only were there few laughs in Some Kind of Monster, the insights it offered of a major band unravelling before one’s very eyes struck a chord far beyond the rock and metal – or even alternative – audience. As such, it also achieved for Metallica something that the new album it showed them desperately struggling to make would not manage to do: rehabilitate their reputation, restoring them from out-of-touch, Napster-crushing millionaire spoilsports back to somewhere closer to the truth-preserving musical vigilantes they had been perceived as previously.

Not that they knew this at the time it was being filmed, as practically every scene from the movie makes clear. Indeed, rather than look like they were about to return as triumphant conquerors, for most of its 160 minutes Some Kind of Monster portrays Metallica as being hopelessly at sea. Beginning, literally, with their equipment being loaded into the Presidio, and ending over two and a half years later with the band’s first tour since Jason Newsted’s departure, via the Napster-baiting debacle, the arrival of Dr Towle, James’ sudden retreat into painstakingly lengthy rehab, the appointment of a new bassist, and many other things neither Berlinger or Sinofsky could possibly have predicted, we get a real sense of how close Metallica was to imploding throughout the months and eventually years the album and movie were being made. From those first few weeks in the studio, with James constantly ‘in a shit mood’ and at loggerheads in particular with Lars, to the excruciating eleven months he was away – when the others had no idea where he was, or if he was ever coming back, ‘I’m preparing for the worst,’ says Lars – the cameras keep rolling, defying rule number one of showbiz: never show the strings and wires.

‘Lars, Bob Rock and I had continued getting together for meetings just to keep the faith,’ recalled Kirk in 2003, ‘keep the momentum going and just keep in touch, because everything was falling apart around us and we felt that if we held strong