The National Film Board has put the 1965 documentary "Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr Leonard Cohen" online.Years ago, when I first saw it, I thought it was a sort of Canadian version of D. A. Pennebaker's classic 1967 Bob Dylan documentary "Don't Look Back". They are both black and white films about national icons that catch their subjects while they are still cocky young men. I can see why I loved it so much in high school. Cohen comes off as really self-involved and self-important and very self-conscious about appearing thoughtful, soulful and wise. Do all poets have to do this as part of their job description?
Rewatching it now, I think that the one moment in this poet-propaganda piece that really rings true to me is when, during a television interview, a forty-five year old Pierre Berton refuses to accept one of Cohen's airy and meaningless responses and instead asks bluntly, "What do you care about, really?"
I like Leonard Cohen, but I don't think that he says one thing in this movie that sounds genuine. That might be excusable from a teenager, but I'm pretty sure he was in his early thirties when this documentary was made.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who's that successful before death just from being a poet deserves to be cocky.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is his bizarre articulation or intonation, or something about his way of speaking that makes everything he says sound like he's reciting it from somewhere in his sinuses. It's mitigated when he sings. ""
Gawd, I love Leonard. Thanks for the link.
You are a poet apologist. I love him too, but come on. In the movie he is all artifice. You can't explain it away as just his intonation.
ReplyDeleteSo what if he's all artifice? You say that as if it were a bad thing. Why should he give it all up just because he's a poet getting his own documentary? The doc (and it's not really a non-fiction piece. That scene where he bounds out of bed in his spotless white undies - come now) is also a product of the 60s, when everyone in the movies had that weird pseudo-European accent and everything was hyper-directed. If you listen to current interviews, he's still very earnest but much more genuine.
ReplyDeleteIn that interview with Pierre Berton, it's like the two of them are speaking different languages. PB is all aggressively logical, prodding for the straight goods, and LC deliberately refuses to play into that. I guess you could say PB refuses to play into LC's look-at-me-I'm-so-precious schtick too. But I think PB looks like the jerk.