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‘Leonard
Cohen: I’m your man’
by David Germain
Associate Press
Thorough it’s not, but the concert documentary “Leonard
Cohen: I’m Your Man” gathers solid interviews,
anecdotes, recitations and tribute performances that present
a fairly engaging portrait of the wry, dark poet who became
a distinct voice in pop music.
“I’m Your Man” is unlikely to appeal much
beyond Cohen’s loyal fans or bring converts to the
brooding whimsy and dense wordplay of his songs. The movie
does do a far better job than a couple of 1990s tribute
albums in matching Cohen’s sobering lyricism with
kindred spirits who can do justice to the tunes during
a concert in his honor in Sydney, Australia.
Fellow somber travelers such as Nick Cave, Kate and Anna
McGarrigle, Rufus and Martha Wainwright and Beth Orton
are among those covering songs that span most of Cohen’s
40-year career.
The reclusive Cohen offers warm and amusing recollections
and teams with U2 for a version of “Tower of Song”
as the documentary’s musical finale, though the strangely
cloistered, unsatisfying cover winds up anticlimactic
after some grand live renditions by other performers.
With Mel Gibson’s film company producing, music-video
maker and former actress Lian Lunson captures music producer
Hal Willner’s Cohen tribute concert “Came So
Far for Beauty” at the Sydney Opera House in 2005.
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Interspersed
between the performances are frank, wistful segments
with Cohen, who also recites some of his poetry. Canadian-born
Cohen discusses his boyhood, his father’s death,
the Montreal poetry scene, his spiritual quest with
a Zen master and the real-life woman who inspired one
of his best-known songs, “Suzanne.”
Cohen, whose bass vocals often lean more toward talking
along to the music than singing, also touches on his
musical abilities.
“I had the title ‘poet,’ and maybe I
was one for a while. Also the title ‘singer’
was kindly accorded me even though I could barely carry
a tune,” Cohen recites from one of his poems.
Even so, trained singers have trouble approaching Cohen’s
soulful depth when covering his songs. Willner assembles
musicians who deeply respect Cohen’s songs and
know what to do with them.
Cave energetically sings “I’m Your Man”
and does a hushed rendition of “Suzanne.”
The McGarrigle sisters and Martha Wainwright (daughter
of Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III) bring
beautiful, trilling harmonies to “Winter Lady,”
and Wainwright, brother Rufus and Joan Wasser trade
passionate verses on “Hallelujah.”
Annoyingly, Lunson drops interview segments into the
middle of some performances, though she thankfully leaves
intact the film’s two standouts, Orton’s achingly
gorgeous rendition of “Sisters of Mercy” and
Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla’s duet on “Anthem.”
Interviews with the musicians are a mixed bag. Rufus
Wainwright vividly relates the first time he met Cohen,
who was in his underwear, feeding tidbits of sausage
to a sickly baby bird. Cave talks with wonder about
the transformative day from his youth when a friend
played him Cohen’s album “Songs of Love and
Hate.”
U2 frontman Bono and guitarist The Edge have some nice
insights, yet both grow overly grandiose in their fawning
praise of Cohen. (“He’s the man for me who
comes down from the mountaintop with the tablets of
stone, having been up there talking with the angels,”
The Edge says.)
Bono redeems himself with this great summation of Cohen’s
grim yet playful sensibilities: “A lot of writers
have dared to walk up the edge of reason and stared
into that great chasm, into the abyss,” Bono says.
“Very few people have got there and kind of laughed
out loud at what they saw.”
“Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man,” a Lionsgate
release, is rated PG-13 for some sex-related material.
Running time: 103 minutes. Three stars out of four.
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