Looking forward to seeing/hearing this. I joined the Leonard Cohen party late, so am catching up still. I wonder how his lawsuit progresses?
“Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man” (Lions Gate)
Shipped: Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man :(website here, IMDb page here)Shipped on 11/15/06.
A host of popular artists -- including Beth Orton, Nick Cave, Rufus Wainright and the U2 boys -- come together for a memorable evening of music at the Sydney Opera House, paying tribute to legendary songwriter Leonard Cohen. Producing a piece that's part concert film and part documentary, filmmaker Lian Lunson combines footage from the show with archival material and intimate interviews, resulting in a fascinating portrait of a gifted tunesmith.
Stephen Holden of the NYT writes:
When Leonard Cohen speaks, the elevated cadences of language are strewn with poetic images so precisely articulated in a rumbling bass-baritone voice that they all but erase the distinction between his song lyrics and personal conversation. Each word is carefully chosen and pronounced with oratorical flourish. Even when his sepulchral drone isn't bending itself around a melody, its sound is musical. Here is one sample of his conversational style, from Lian Lunson's wonderful documentary portrait, “Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man.” Reflecting on the inspiration for his song “The Traitor,” he muses that it is about “failing or betraying some mission you were mandated to fulfill and being unable to fulfill it and then coming to understand that the real mandate was not to fulfill it but to stand guiltless in the predicament in which you found yourself.”If a strain of gallows humor didn't underlie many of Mr. Cohen's pronouncements, such observations might sound insufferably pretentious. But he continually undercuts his own solemnity. Here is he is on his own mystique as a silver-tongued Casanova: “My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke. It caused me to laugh bitterly the 10,000 nights I spent alone.”
“Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man” combines pieces of an extended interview with this Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and author, now 71, with a tribute concert organized by Hal Willner at the Sydney Opera House in January 2005. Titled “Came So Far for Beauty” (after a Cohen song), the event featured performances of many of Mr. Cohen's best-known songs by Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Martha Wainwright and Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons), among others.
Inane comments for the day - I've always loved Leonard Cohen's voice - the last time Jay and I danced was to waltz to "The Last Waltz" (Jay did much better in our ballroom dance classes than I ever did, so he looked much more graceful - I looked like a stand-up comedy routine) - I do love both his and Concrete Blonde's version of "Everybody Knows", which doubtlessly shows I'm a Cohen n00b - eh, bygones.