Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2005)

A documentary on the legendary singer-songwriter, with performances by those musicians he has influenced.

Director:

Lian Lunson

Writer:

Lian Lunson

Stars:

Leonard Cohen, Martha Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Leonard Cohen	...	Himself
Martha Wainwright	...	Herself
Beth Orton	...	Herself
Jarvis Cocker	...	Himself
Rufus Wainwright	...	Himself
Nick Cave	...	Himself
Perla Batalla	...	Herself
Julie Christensen	...	Herself
Antony Hegarty	...	Himself (as Antony)
Linda Thompson	...	Herself
Teddy Thompson	...	Himself
Kate McGarrigle	...	Herself
Anna McGarrigle	...	Herself
The Handsome Family	...	Themselves
Hal Willner	...	Himself - Music Producer

Storyline

Legendary poet, singer/songwriter and alleged ladies man Leonard Cohen is interviewed in his L.A. home about his extraordinary life and times, interspersed with old footage from his private photo collection and lavish praise plus elaborately performed Cohen cover songs from a motley crew of colleague musicians, amongst whom Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rufus & Martha Wainwright, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker and U2's Bono and The Edge. By way of dessert the latter two and their band mates even get to back up the man for a special performance of his own.

---

Plot Keywords:

poet | leonard cohen | pop singer | music history | rock music | 

---

Genres:

Documentary | Biography | Music

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some sex-related material

Details

Official Sites:

Lion's Gate Films [us]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 September 2006 (Finland)

Also Known As:

Leonard Cohen: Én itt vagyok neked

Filming Locations:

Sydney Opera House - 2 Macquarie Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$17,130 (USA) (23 June 2006)

Gross:

$1,036,050 (USA) (8 September 2006)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lionsgate, Sundance Channel, Con Artists Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min 98 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color Black and White

Did You Know?

Quotes

Leonard Cohen: There is a beautiful moment in the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna. The general. The great general. He's standing in his chariot. And all the chariots are readied for war. And across the valley, he sees his opponents. And there he sees not just uncles and aunts and cousins, he sees gurus, he sees teachers that have taught him; and you know how the Indians revere that relationship. He sees them. And Krishna, one of the expressions of the deity, says to him, "you'll never untangle the circumstances that ...

---

Connections

Featured in Zomergasten: Episode #20.1 (2007)

---

Soundtracks

"Sisters of Mercy"
Performed by Beth Orton
Written by Leonard Cohen
Published by Bad Monk Publishing (BMI) / Sony/ATV Songs LLC (BMI)
All rights on behalf of Bad Monk Publishing and Sony/ATV Songs LLC are administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing,
8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203 USA.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

User Reviews

The Voice and Songs of Cohen Surmount Visual Gimmicks

"Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man" is an entertaining and informative tribute to the iconic singer-songwriter/poet.

Structuring the film as a mostly chronological autobiographical interview with Cohen, director Lian Lunson intersperses his personal family photographs and home movies with cover performances at a Sydney Opera House concert to illustrate themes in his life. While his experiences in New York City have been well-documented to fans, especially in his own songs, the depth of the influence of his Canadian heritage is a new insight. With only a humorous nod to his reputation as a "ladies man" (he sounds like every rock 'n' roller on VH-1 cheerfully admitting that he became a musician to pick up chicks), his spiritual explorations are well explained, including his Jewish background and a visit with his Zen mentor.

Unusual for this adulatory genre, Cohen is articulate about his songwriting as a painstaking craft in general, though only a couple of specific songs that we see intensely performed or the albums they are from are given more context, such as who "Suzanne" was and working with Phil Spector.

Throughout, the performers from Canada, the U.S., England, Ireland and Australia, male, female, straight and gay, discuss his songs and the impact they have had on their lives and art. While it is not mentioned until the very last credit, this 2005 concert is based on a packed 2003 concert in Brooklyn also produced by Hal Willner, as part of the Canadian Consulate's annual Canada Day sponsorship in Prospect Park, under the rubric "Came So Far For Beauty: An Evening of Songs by Leonard Cohen Under the Stars," which featured many of the same performers captured on stage here, including Rufus Wainwright, who relates surprising personal anecdotes about his formative connection with the Cohen family, his sister Martha Wainwright, his mother and aunt Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Nick Cave, the Handsome Family (Brett and Rennie Sparks), Teddy Thompson and his mother Linda Thompson, and Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen who have backed Cohen on his last two tours, with an all-star downtown NYC band led by the horns of Steve Bernstein and the master guitar of Mark Ribot.

Instead of Laurie Andersen at that magical night, added are Jarvis Cocker and Antony Hegarty (known respectively as the leader of the bands Pulp and Antony and the Johnsons, though that's never mentioned in the film) and Beth Orton. The performers are only identified in the opening and closing credits. While the concert footage nicely mixes close-ups and full band shots, it is more than half-way through the film before we hear any audience reaction, and we only see glimpses of the audience towards the end. Added climactically just to the film is Cohen singing with U2 at a small club.

The interviews are all talking heads, with the extensive Cohen conversations focusing on the planes of his face, particularly as the camera gazes at him adoringly during silences, including a lot of freeze frames. There is an annoying repetitive device of blurring with fades in and fades out, and theatrical focus on a back stage scrim of beads, accompanied by odd theremin-like sounds. This reinforces the somewhat cabaret interpretations of several of the performers that would seem more appropriate to a Tom Waits tribute and are very unlike the two tribute albums that have already been produced.

Cohen himself is so charismatic and his rumbling voice is so magisterial that he surmounts the visual gimmicks.