The premiere of Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man

News about Leonard Cohen and his work, press, radio & TV programs etc.
Anne
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The premiere of Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man

Post by Anne »

I saw the first showing of Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man tonight at the Toronto Film Festival. It was great to see the movie. Unfortunately, Leonard was not there to introduce the film, but he has said he didn't want Lian Lunson to be on her own presenting the film, so he sent someone to help her out and Bono came and introduced the film! It was a nice surprise. He read a poem he had written about Leonard. The movie was filled with a lot of documentary stuff from ladies and gentlemen and other familar sources, but also with some new interviews with leonard, interspersed with concert footage from the sydney Came So Far For Beauty concert that Hal Wilner put together. The film ended with the performance of Tower of Song by Leonard and U2 at the slipper club. It was all a real treat. Hal Wilner was at the screening of the film which was pretty cool.

I was able to meet Lian Lunson at the private party after the film and let her know how impressed I was with her work. It was a pretty great night!
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icecreamtruck
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Post by icecreamtruck »

How was Leonard's (and U2's) performance?
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Tri-me
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Post by Tri-me »

Wow Anne glad someone in the forum was there. I am curious to read the poem Bono wrote. Do you know why Leonard was not there? Asking because it was stated in the news that he was going to be in Toronto for the festival.
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Tri-me (tree-mite) Sheldrön
"Doorhinge rhymes with orange" Leonard Cohen
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tomsakic
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Post by tomsakic »

Because he didn't wanna take attention from Lian Lunson and her work to himself.
Typically Leonard. Did you really think he will appear? :wink:
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lizzytysh
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Post by lizzytysh »

That's great, Anne ~ thanks for the recap :D ! Nice to hear that you got to meet Lian, and I think Tom has a good point on Leonard's reason for not appearing there. It really would've skewed the reception toward himself.

~ Lizzy
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Tri-me
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Post by Tri-me »

If that were my film I would be happy to have him there, would create more of a buzz and for moral support. Maybe Anne and Jazz know.
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"Doorhinge rhymes with orange" Leonard Cohen
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lizzytysh
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Post by lizzytysh »

Oh, goodness, yes, Tri-me......if it were mine, I'd feel the same ~ and, it would've drawn more 'attention' to the film; and, maybe, these projections didn't even enter into Leonard's thinking. It's possible that Hurricane Katrina [and all that entails] entered in. Perhaps, he felt that a film about him was small in scope, in comparison with what's happened in his country. Who really knows?

~ Lizzy
Anne
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Post by Anne »

My contact with the film told me that Leonard was originally scheduled to appear, but he changed his mind and decided to focus on his work instead. Lian said he was very pleased that the film was first showing in this country so I bet he would have been delighted to come to Toronto. He did send Bono to provide moral support to Lian.
The performance by Leonard and U2 was shot more like a video than like a live performance. It was enjoyable, but it wasn't the best way to assess his voice.
tgrace
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i'm your man screening

Post by tgrace »

Greetings everyone, I live in Toronto and thought I'd post a few comments on the new LC Doc. Thanks to Anne for starting this thread – my feelings were a bit different from hers and no disrespect is intended at all.

As mentioned, Leonard was not in attendance at the screening. U2's Bono did attend as did his cowboy hat, and there was a crowd of U2 fans hoping to get their dog-eared vinyl copies of Live at Red Rocks signed. I saw a few people with Cohen books and records waiting quietly while Bono's fans screamed after him and jockeyed with one another to get cellphone snapshots.

Anyone who attended (or wished they'd attended) the Came So Far For Beauty tribute concerts will probably like this film, as it seemed to consist of about 80% live footage by the likes of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Jarvis Cocker and others. There is some new and old LC interview footage interspersed between songs, but also an equal (perhaps greater?) amount of interview footage of Bono, The Edge, and participants from the tribute show. Hal Wilner, the musical director was also interviewed, and the cast of backing musicians from Sydney were each individually introduced.

I am a huge Nick Cave fan, but I wasn't particularly taken with his performances. The other interpretations were... ok. Many in the theatre audience applauded after every song, so I'm probably a little particular when it comes to others covering Cohen's songs!

Afterwards, the director mentioned that she contacted her old friend Mel Gibson to help her set up the concert shoot on very short notice. Gibson is a fan apparently, and served as a producer. She also mentioned that Cohen never explicitly agreed to be in the film!

It struck me as a work put together by well-meaning sympathetic people, but with so little Cohen screen time, it just didn't satisfy. Throw in U2 at the end (they weren't part of the Came So Far... concerts), and it all seemed like a bit of a Frankenstein's monster, as far as documentaries go. Some of the performances were also frustrating as a few artists didn't seem to know the lyrics, getting them wrong and consulting lyric sheets too often. With U2, Leonard is clearly lip-synching! Come on!!!

There was a wonderful version of If It Be Your Will by an artist I'm not familiar with, and of course Leonard was able to redeem an awful lot with a few beautiful quotes.

I'll gladly wait in line (and open my wallet) for anything to do with LC, but the great contemporary documentary has yet to be made. In fact, I wonder if others might agree that the documentary content is too modest to really consider this a Cohen documentary – when it plays more like a document of one night, rather than of a great life.
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lizzytysh
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Post by lizzytysh »

Dear TGrace ~

Welcome to the Forum :D and thank you for your own, explicitly detailed response to the documentary. From what you're saying, perhaps, Leonard isn't delighted with the opening :shock: :lol: .

Oh my, I'm guessing that the 'mayhem' that Bono's appearance created, may have been a 'predictable' by Leonard's, regarding his own. Given his fans', own, quiet waiting, their response to his appearance may not have risen to the level of "mayhem," but then with his prolonged absence from 'public arenas,' it may have ~ we'll never know.

I'll be very interested to see the film [hopefully, I will one day] and see what my own reaction is.....however, given the distribution of footage, it does sound like it's a bit out of balance, given the span of time and coverage it could have given on Leonard himself.

The one thing I was a little surprised with on the trailer was the apparent splicing, where following the introduction of "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen!" it showed some footage of Leonard, true enough, but then cut to someone not Leonard, covering one of his songs, "Chelsea Hotel," in a not-terribly-impressive voice and 'terse' singing style. I wondered if that might end up being rather confusing to someone, seeing the trailer, who has no idea of who Leonard Cohen is [surely, they wouldn't think that was Leonard :shock: ; perhaps, from a much earlier time :? ~ but you just never know ~ at least they'd be forced to say to themselves or each other, "He's sure come a long way since then, hasn't he?" :lol: ].

Thanks a lot for your input.

~ Lizzy
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lizzytysh
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Post by lizzytysh »

WoW. I see there are 25 Guests here right now! Welcome to the Forum, Guests :D ~ I hope you'll end up joining! I wonder how much we can attribute the fact, of these 25 Guests, to people seeing the film at the Toronto Film Festival :D ! Hopefully, great things will continue to come from, perhaps, 'mediocre', or at least less-than-optimum, presentations 8) !

OMG! In the time it took me to write this posting, the number of Guests increased to 37! Jarkko ~ is that a record!?!

Now, it's 39! Is there a literature/songwriting/poetry/filmmaking class being held, where everyone has their own computer or laptop, and they're all being requested to log on to this site, before they proceed? C'mon Guests ~ join and let us know what's up with [what prompted] your appearance here! Thanks to any who do :D .

~ Lizzy
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Tri-me
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Post by Tri-me »

Thank you Tgrace for the observation. It seems to be that the doc is about the music more than about Leonard Cohen? Being a fan of documentaries, enjoying seeing them become more popular, being shown in theaters....they are an art form as much as a drama is. As long as it is well done it is worth watching.
What you gonna do Bono has fans!!!! Maybe his fans became Leonard Cohen fans. You may not be around to hear it, well if you reincarnate as a human you will if you are a snow flea in Antarctica you will not, but in 200 years people will still be singing Leonard Cohen songs.
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"Doorhinge rhymes with orange" Leonard Cohen
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tomsakic
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Post by tomsakic »

Tgrace, guy who sung If It Be Your Will is Antony of Antony and the Johnsons. Just this weekend he received Mercury Award for best new artist.
Lizzytysh, the guy who sung Chelsea Hotel was one and unmistakable so-much-talked Rufus Wainwright. :wink:
Tri-me, Leonard didn't appear because it is not his film, but Lian Lunson's, as I said. 8)
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tomsakic
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Post by tomsakic »

There's only one way to not to be dissapointed by this movie, when we finally see it: to understand it's not, after all, about Leonard Cohen, but about Hal Willner's production of "Came So Far For Beauty" tribute show (as it was announced half year ago). So, to have any new footage of Leonard in it, and having him accepting to give an interview and appear (what we see in trailer and it looks great), is actually very pleasing. Last year everybody were unsatisfied with BBC's documentary What Leonard Cohen Did For Me, as they were really expecting something new from Leonard. The title itself said all about it: it was the movie about the fan culture and how Leonard infected people's lives. Now, this one is about Willner's show: there's show in it, interview from all participants and Willner himself, and - as with What Leonard Cohen Did For Me - they used the archive footages which were available, and that's only, of course, Ladies and Gentlemen NFBC's DVD from 1965 (already in trailer we have the title /speaker announces "Ladies and Gentlemen... Mister Leonard Cohen!"/, and the final shots of young Leonard on bike), and the second usual source is BBC's 1988 show (Songs From the Life of Leonard Cohen).
Maybe the title is misleading, or some announcements about "covering the complete Leonard's life" (that was just usual press-release duck, obviously), although I think Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man is good title because - if film covers bunch of people willing to sing his songs around the globe - Leonard Cohen then is their man. :P (On the other side, this would be great title for Leonard's "real" DVD, with clips and everything, but now we can vote for Scenes From the Secret Life of Leonard Cohen or something like that :idea: :wink: ).
I saw some aud. shots of Willner's tribute and hear NYC and Brighton shows on aud. CDRs, and I am totally happy that we'll have that great show in actual DVD release, leaving behind the fact that I also wasn't happy with sheets cheating, Nick Cave's covers, Rufus' nasal-cabaret-like performances (what now Lizzytysh objected also, I'd say) - abou all of this we discussed earlier when these shows were happenings - but, after all, there's no bad Leonard Cohen cover as long it's Cohen song, half of those people were the real discover and today they're among my favourite artists (Martha Wainwright, The Handsome Family, Antony, Linda Thompson), and last but not least, hey, we have there, as someone wrote, dozen or more of leftist, highly acclaimed and leading artists among youn generation of alt.country, americana, singer-songwriters' genre or whatever it's called. :!:
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margaret
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Post by margaret »

Anthony has an album out called "I am a bird now", which has had some excellent reviews and is well worth a listen/purchase.
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