I approached "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man" with great trepidation, because it didn't seem likely that a fitting tribute was even possible, but I still held out a hope-beyond-hope that it would be worthy of him. I was wrong. Really, really wrong.
Let me at least start off with the good stuff. There are numerous interview clips that are great—and most definitely worth the price of admission for Cohen fans. You really do get to know him a bit, and if you think you liked him before, you'll love him now.
Most of the movie, however, consists of footage from a tribute concert staged in Australia in 2005. There are a couple of good performances, but most of it is utter crap. I don't know where they dug up these performers, but it was a disgrace to hear them butcher those gorgeous songs the way they did. Rufus Wainwright does several songs; he has an amazing voice and really does justice to "Hallelujah"—that is, until his sister Martha Wainwright joins in and ruins it. It barely sounded like the same song. She sings another song too, and it's nearly unlistenable. Rufus also sang "Everybody Knows," but he looked like he was having way too much fun with it. There was none of that darkness that the lyrics demand. But at least it was listenable. I found myself fast-forwarding (Is that still the right word for DVDs?) through Antony, the McGarrigles (Rufus and Martha's mom and aunt), Jarvis Cocker, the Handsome Family, and many more. I did watch Nick Cave, but mostly to laugh at his lounge-lizard act (think Bill Murray from the early SNL years). Oh, and I did like (Richard and Linda Thompson's son) Teddy Thompson's version of "Tonight Will Be Fine."
When you think you've had enough and are ready to turn the damn thing off, don't. The movie ends with a studio clip of the 71-year-old Cohen singing "Tower of Song" with Bono and Edge (when they were done with their pompous soliloquies of praise) that was wonderful. Hearing him sing, "Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey, I ache in the places where I used to play" some 20 years after he wrote those words is quite moving.
So, to recap: Watch the movie for the interviews. Ignore the music as best you can. There have been so, so many wonderful covers of Leonard Cohen's songs over the years (Jennifer Warnes comes to mind), it seems downright criminal that these magnificent song-poems were given to this bunch. And I blame Mel Gibson, who was a producer of this movie! That's right! How did that happen? Does he actually have good taste? Did he not realize Cohen was Jewish? Did he owe someone a favor? This does not compute.
Update: Oh, and I forgot to mention the bizarre sparkly red lights and repeated audio and all the other weird and highly distracting techniques inflicted on this poor movie.
Comments