Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

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Mabeanie1
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by Mabeanie1 »

Other screening dates for the UK and Ireland can be found here. Some include film of the Q & A.

https://www.marianneandleonard.co.uk/screenings#watch

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Mollydog
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by Mollydog »

It's playing at the Bytowne in Ottawa from July 26th to 30th.

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panjandrum
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by panjandrum »

Trailer immediately reminds me of:

And now you want to marry me
You want to take me down the aisle
You want to throw confetti fingerprints
You know that's not my style

O sure I'd like to marry you
But I can't face the dawn
With any girl who knew me
When my fingerprints were on
Grant100
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by Grant100 »

I have booked to see the film later this month with a Q&A by the director at Broadway Cinema in Nottingham. I will have to take a hanky with me as I think I will feel emotional watching.
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by WiTS »

‘Marianne & Leonard’ Review: An Emotionally Complex Story of a Poet and His Muse
By Glenn Kenny
New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/movi ... eview.html
When you go to see a documentary film by Nick Broomfield, you are likely to see Nick Broomfield himself. His mode of inquiry, whether he’s examining murderers, politicians or rock stars (subjects of his previous pictures include Aileen Wuornos, Sarah Palin, Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain), always insists on exposing the inquiry itself. And like Michael Moore, Broomfield has the personality to make his onscreen presence interesting even if you’re not keen on meta-documentary.

His new picture, “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love,” is about the enduring love between the Canadian singer-songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, the Norwegian woman he met on the Greek island of Hydra in the early 1960s. It’s a story that is at once simple and threaded with startling complexities. Its emotional entanglements and narrative twists can seem the stuff of fiction. They shed sometimes discomfiting light on the expansions and excesses of the 1960s and ’70s counterculture that its main players helped to define.

Before seeing the movie I wondered just how Broomfield would insinuate himself into its story. As it happens, he did not have to insinuate at all; he’s a part of it. In the late 1960s he, too, met Marianne Ihlen in Hydra, and became close to her. Ihlen is known to the world as Cohen’s muse; she inspired one of his most anthemic and sad songs, “So Long Marianne,” which he first recorded in 1967. She was an inspiration to Broomfield as well, encouraging his film work.

Small world, right? While Broomfield’s films often take a sardonic, close-to-cynical tone, “Marianne & Leonard” is admiring, affectionate and a little awe-struck. Cohen was a lauded poet when he left Montreal for Greece, where he spent years working on a novel, “Beautiful Losers,” whose critical lambasting almost ruined his reputation. Ihlen looked after him in Hydra, made art of her own, and raised a son from a previous relationship. Cohen started toying with music. In New York, he sought out the singer Judy Collins, told her “I can’t sing, I can’t play guitar,” and then played the song “Suzanne” for her.

Collins recounts this in the film in new footage, and she still has an air of disbelief about the world Cohen unfolded for her in that song. She then brought him out into her world.

And it was off to the races. The erotic and pharmaceutical excesses of the ’60s provided Cohen with a playpen from which he fended off depression (not always successfully). The movie doesn’t shy away from the tragedies that befell Ihlen and her circle.

Ihlen and Leonard knew the importance of giving and receiving love, but they sometimes failed to recognize the responsibility inherent in that. The movie’s final section features the now-famous note Cohen sent to his old lover as she lay dying in Norway, his words an exemplar of plain profundity. It also quotes from one of Cohen’s Hydra poems: “I pray that loving memory/exists for them too/the precious ones I overthrew/for an education in the world.” This remarkable movie understands the exact place from which these brooding words came.


Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love
Rated R for language and drug use. In English and Norwegian, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes.

Director:Nick Broomfield
Stars:Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Helle Goldman, Marianne Ihlen, Richard Vick
Rating:R
Running: Time1h 42m
Genres:Documentary, Music
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mutti
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by mutti »

Does anyone know when the film will be shown in North America? I keep looking for Vancouver or Seattle in particular.
Thanks!
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Mollydog
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by Mollydog »

Hi Leslie, It's playing in Ottawa at the end of July at the Bytowne, an independent theatre.

Mary
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by HugoD »

Couldn’t make it to the screening in Belgium a while ago. So I hoping that this movie will be shown in the next few months in an other theater somewhere in the Netherlands or Belgium.

I have searched the programs of the well known movie houses in the Netherlands but have not found it yet unfortunately. So fingers crossed
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by Heather1969 »

Very much looking forward to see this on the big screen but for those who can’t this might be of interest.

https://shop.dogwoof.com/products/maria ... f-love-dvd

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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by HugoD »

Heather1969 wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 10:13 am Very much looking forward to see this on the big screen but for those who can’t this might be of interest.

https://shop.dogwoof.com/products/maria ... f-love-dvd

Heather
Thanks so much for this link, ordered it right away :D
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by jarkko »

Amazon also lists the DVD, 9,99 pounds on the UK site.
However, Dogwoof's price is the same and they offer free delivery also to other countries.

This is the CD cover:
Image
MARIANNE & LEONARD: WORDS OF LOVE is a beautiful yet tragic love story between Leonard Cohen and his Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen. Their love began on the idyllic Greek island of Hydra in 1960 as part of a bohemian community of foreign artists, writers and musicians. The film follows their relationship from the early days on Hydra, a humble time of ‘free love’ and open marriage, to how their love evolved when Leonard became a successful musician.

It was on Hydra in 1968 that director Nick Broomfield, then aged 20, first met Marianne Ihlen. Marianne introduced him to Leonard Cohen’s music and also encouraged Nick to make his first film and was an enormous influence on him. Marianne and Leonard's was a love story that would continue for the rest of their lives. Along the way, we learn of the tragedy that befell those that could not survive the beauty of Hydra, the highs and lows of Leonard’s career, and the inspirational power that Marianne possessed.
Product details
Actors: Leonard Cohen, Marianne Ihlen
Directors: Nick Broomfield
Format: PAL
Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
Number of discs: 1
Classification: 12
Studio: Dogwoof
DVD Release Date: 14 Oct. 2019
Run Time: 97 minutes
A masterly evocation of a beautiful love story. The range of archive material was profound, from the early shots of Marianne on the boat in Hydra, to her death bed when being read Leonard's last love letter. In all, it deepens our understanding of Leonard while in no way being intrusive on some very private moments. - Tony Palmer
Laura Weitzner works in a movie theater in New York, and they just got this giant poster standee in the lobby for the film:

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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by vlcoats »

I also searched for a theater showing it on the West Coast from Seattle to San Diego but with no success.

Thank you for the postings for a DVD source. I see it says that the format may not play outside of Europe, but I have purchased dvd's saying that before, and they usually (?) work. Has anyone purchased one of these and had it work for them? (We play DVDs on either an Xbox One or a PS3).

I REALLY want to see this, especially after reading some of the letters between them and being in Hydra.

Thanks again!
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by mutti »

Thanks Mary! I was just in Vancouver and Mary told me it is playing this week at The Fifth Avenue Cinemas which is a very nice small theater complex and easy to get to as its not downtown. I missed it by days. I am watching to see if and when it comes to the Seattle area. I too saw that the DVD that is for sale is not available until October and may not work outside Europe or the UK. I imagine it will be for sale in North America too if its for sale in the UK. Patiently waiting...
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by WiTS »

Pre-ordered on Amazon UK and estimated delivery (to Beijing) date is 24 Oct
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Re: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, film by Nick Broomfield

Post by B4real »

An interesting review here https://thespool.net/movies/2019/07/rev ... s-of-love/
Matt Cipolla July 14, 2019 Movies

“Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love” Is Hardly A Thousand Kisses Deep
The one and only Leonard Cohen turns flat in Nick Broomfield’s latest, and it brings down his better half as a result.
“I was his Greek muse. He was the creative one,” Marianne Ihlen’s voice tells us. As a rare moment of her voice being heard, it’s as sad as it is refreshing. Here is a woman who’s been pushed into the shadows, and after her relationship with one of the twentieth century’s biggest stars ended, she became second fiddle to Leonard Cohen. In this documentary, however, she and her ex-lover become clichés, albeit with more details.

Yes, him too. The one and only Leonard Cohen turns flat in Nick Broomfield’s latest, and it brings down his better half as a result. Part of it is because the film doesn’t present her as equal halves. He’s Canadian; she’s Greek. He becomes a star; she becomes a muse. The doc deifies him while she fades into the background, and as the picture treks on, she falls victim to the documentary’s myopic structure and obsession with details. It’s like Broomfield based an idea on Ihlen’s words without grasping the irony that dripped from her every letter.

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love has details for days, but few of them tessellate.
It has lots to look at but not nearly enough to say. Hopping from the ‘60s to her death some half-decade later, Bloomfield gives audiences crumbs of context to wrangle in his story. Archive footage plays out while the director himself, once the pair’s peer, drones on about his experiences. It’s not quite an outsider looking in, though; it’s more of a third party jamming himself into someone else’s story, ogling at the innocuous.

What’s onscreen is almost always a deep find, and despite each piece’s lack of cohesion in a larger whole, the movie tosses exposition at the bottom. “Leonard split his time between Hydra and Montreal,” it tells us early on. Okay, good to know. And then: “Leonard was a writer before he was a singer,” It’d be nice if they established that before, but okay. But wait, there’s more? “After Beautiful Losers, Leonard had a breakdown.” Now it just feels slapdash. What’s odder, though, is how its sketchiest impulses play against the parts that actually work.

One would hope that an exploration of Ihlen and Cohen’s relationship would veer closer to the whole truth instead of the further deification of a pop star. It’s about halfway through that Broomfield abandons his initial thesis, forgetting about Ihlen in order to focus on Cohen’s touring life. Here it finds its rhythm, but it’s also when it becomes clear that Marianne & Leonard is only as good as its archive footage. Its deeper cuts bring a sense of life. Some voiceovers can be invasive, but they can also strike a keen balance between sight and sound.

When Broomfield puts these next to the quieter moments—a single tear, a nervous performance—emotions come to pass. Not only do they only revolve around Cohen, but they’re orchestrated in such an openly subjective love of the man that it never works up the nerve to criticize him. It’s a one-sided biography. To Bloomfield, Cohen is a god. An unintentionally chauvinistic, irresponsible, and highly talented god who was a product of his time, sure, but a god all the same.

So what does that make Ihlen? One half of the relationship, maybe? Not here. Here she’s an object, a fluke, a piece to use for a bit and replace after a few years. She’s a limb of free love culture that just so happened to cross paths with a singer-songwriter. Broomfield may care about her, but his film just cares about the manic pixie dream girl with flowers in her hair.

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is currently singing Hallelujah in limited release.
....written above, "He’s Canadian; she’s Greek".... :razz:
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