Frontline - PBS - LC's "Democracy"

[dar]

Maybe Leonard will be singing at Obama's swearing in after the election. I just caught a brief soundbite for an upcoming PBS special and they were playing LC's version of "Democracy" in the background. Wonderful!

[dar]

I was trying to find an air date for the PBS election special I mentioned above and came across this...

Lessons of darkness. 2001. 1 videodisc (130 min.). Lessons of darkness: A stirring documentary of 1992 post-Gulf War Kuwait, focusing on the oil well fires ignited by retreating Iraqi soldiers. What resulted is less a simple documentary about an environmental catastrophe than an apocalyptic vision of hell, a strangely beautiful portrait of a world on fire. Fata Morgana: Herzog brings his cameras to the Sahara desert in order to film mirages. He combines the apocalyptic, often hallucinatory images of the desert with passages from the Mayan creation myth, the Popol Vuh, set to songs of Leonard Cohen. DVD 452

Just FYI.

[Anne]

I have written in the boards about that Werner Herzog movie before. Fata Morgana is a movie that was made in 1971. I think we can maybe discount it as news then.

[efc]

Good to hear Leonard’s stuff, but do PBS, a publicly funded but left leaning organisation, play the song when they cover McCain?

[dar]

Well, it was news to me Annie! But, sorry, I should have researched this blurb a bit more. Thought this was something from 2001 featuring LC's songs. So, it's 1971 movie? Moderator - feel free to remove this as very old news then - that's what I get for trying to be timely and/or politically correct!

[~greg]

Frontline: The Choice, is tonight --- oct 14th --- on PBS

Frontline: The Choice (2008 PBS, 9 p.m.)

"Democracy is coming to the USA," sings the always relevant Leonard Cohen
during an online promo clip for this two-hour in-depth look at presidential candidates
Barack Obama and John McCain.

Democracy is an interesting song choice if you're familiar with the rest of the plaintive lyrics
that end with Cohen "holding up this little wild bouquet" of hope for change.
Frontline promises The Choice 2008 will "tell the definitive story of these men
and their ascent to their party's nominations."
But will it reveal who can truly lead the way?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... wtvpicks14

The flash video preview is here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/

Don't know if the song is used in the actual show or not.
(not much point in watching it if it isn't.)

This election season, PBS's flagship documentary series FRONTLINE
offers voters more options than ever to view its quadrennial
award-winning election special The Choice 2008, premiering Tuesday,
Oct. 14, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings),
with encore broadcasts Sunday, Oct. 26, and Monday, Nov. 3, 2008.

For the first time, viewers will also be able to watch the complete
two-hour dual biography of John McCain and Barack Obama on YouTube
( youtube.com/pbs ) and download it free from iTunes beginning
Oct. 15 through the month of November. The Choice 2008 will also
stream in the high-quality News & Public Affairs Player at
pbs.org/frontline and on many local PBS station Web sites,
where visitors can select from a rich archive of more than
45 full-length FRONTLINE reports, as always with no commercials.

"Now more than ever, new media plays an important role
in how Americans learn and share information about the election,"
says FRONTLINE executive producer David Fanning.
"It's important that we continue to fulfill the mission
of public broadcasting by extending free viewership
of The Choice 2008 to as wide an audience as possible
and by reaching out to voters across these digital platforms."

Digital Cable television viewers will also be able to access
The Choice 2008 via Elections '08 On Demand, a voter-education
VOD channel that is being offered across the country on America's
leading cable operators, including Comcast, Cablevision
and Time Warner Cable among many others. The Choice 2008
also will be offered On Demand through additional
local cable operators in select markets. Please check
with your cable provider to find The Choice 2008
and Elections '08 On Demand. Finally, repeat broadcasts
of The Choice 2008 are scheduled on the digital channel
PBS WORLD on Oct. 15 at 7 P.M.; Oct. 16 at 12 A.M.,
8 A.M. and 2 P.M.; and Oct. 19 at 12 P.M. ET.

- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... 2008/#free

[hydriot]

...that end with Cohen "holding up this little wild bouquet" of hope for change.

As usual, Leonard's words are given whatever meaning the prosetyliser wants. Leonard's "little wild bouquet" in fact makes no reference whatsoever to any hope for change. Rather the reverse -- to my mind "holding up this little wild bouquet" symbolises maintaining your values and your ideals in an increasingly corrupt world (stubbornly "like those garbage bags that time cannot decay").

[annaedith]

In the radio here in Ireland, they were talking about the US elections and then playing "Democracy"! Itis just strange how he always is years ahead, and behind at the same time...
Has the song been used anywhere in the US since the elections?