The Love Story Between Leonard Cohen & His Muse Marianne

Opening today in the triangle at Silverspot Cinema in Chapel Hill, AMC CLASSIC Durham 15, and Regal North Hills 14 in Raleigh:

MARIANNE & LEONARD: WORDS OF LOVE

(Dir. Nick Broomfield, 2019)

This is a quite touching treatise on the on again off again relationship between iconic poet/singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and his lover/muse, Marianne Ihlen (the subject of Cohen’s classic “So Long, Marianne”).

It’s also the best film yet by documentarian Nick Broomfield, who, in some of his films (AILEEN WUORNOS, KURT & COURTNEY, BIGGIE & TUPAK) has come off as a twit.

Not here, however, as he tenderly relays the Norwegian Marianne and the Canadian Leonard meeting on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960, and how they immediately hit it off. This is offset by Broomfield revealing that “for a short while, I became one of her [Marianne’s] lovers.”

Marriane and Leonard lived together for a bit, each feeding off the other’s self conscious souls. Leonard began as a writer, an aspiring novelist, but didn’t really make his mark until Judy Collins recorded his song “Suzanne.” Collins persuaded him to overcome his stage fright and get onstage, and then, as Collins says, “He was off to the races, Columbia signed him up, and was his label forever.”

Meanwhile Marianne deals with depression, loneliness, until she gets a telegram from Leonard requesting she come to him with her son to the Montreal. From there, they live in New York as Leonard’s star rises as we see via 1970 footage from the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and the legendary Isle of Wight Festival.

We also get some anecdotal evidence as to how much of a ladies’ man Leonard was in the ‘70s, while he still spent time with Marianne, and Suzanne Verdal, who inspired the aforementioned song of the same name.

If it seems as though I’m spending more time on Leonard than Marianne, it’s because that’s what Broomfield does. Marianne seems to whittle away years in Hydra, which is depicted throughout the film home movie-style as a beautiful seaside and mountainside village, before she decides to go back home to Oslo, Norway, and begin a normal life.

Leonard goes into a monestary at the Mount Baldy Zen Center in California from 1994-1999, but comes back to find that his trusted manager had embezzled millions from him and he was broke. This made Leonard get back on stage to again make a living and the shows were rousing successes (I saw him in Durham, NC, in 2009 and he was magnificent).

Despite the couple’s imbalance, the film’s focus is on their relationship and ends on a poignant note pertaining to Leonard’s last love letter to Marianne received on her death bed in 2016; Leonard would pass three months later.

MARIANNE & LEONARD is as moving as a documentary can get. It’s not as poetic as the troubled people it portrays but it gets awful close to their discomfort in making love last. By putting forth his most personal story yet, Bloomfield seems closer to his subjects than in any of his previous works.

More later...

BARNEY'S VERSION: A Tragicom Schlub Story

BARNEY'S VERSION (Dir. Richard J. Lewis, 2010)BARNEY'S VERSION (Dir. Richard J. Lewis, 2010)

In this tragicomic indie (for lack of a better genre classification), based on the 1997 Mordecai Richler novel, we first meet the crabby Barney Panofsky, played by Paul Giamatti, drunkenly cold calling his ex-wife at 3 AM.

It's a suitable introduction for such a lovably pathetic character, one that has shades of Giamatti's likewise hung-up-on-his-ex-wife work in SIDEWAYS.

Though here Giamatti swigs hard liquor not wine, and he’s got a devious confidence, but he still tumbles down a hill in the middle of a tussle with his best friend as he did in that 2004 sleeper hit.

In a modern day Montreal bar, Mark Addy as a crusty old ex-cop slides across the bar to Giamatti a copy of his just published sensationalistic book (“With Friends Like These”) which speculates on the dark past of our aging protagonist. Addy addles closer, getting up in Giamatti's face, and says:

“You screwed over everyone you ever knew or cared about. Now the whole world’s gonna know what a murderer you really are.”

Giamatti responds: “You could use a mint.”

As he pages through the hardback, Giamatti flashbacks to Rome in the mid '70s where he is living it up bohemian style. He marries his pregnant girlfriend (Rachelle Lefevre), but it's a short lived honeymoon when he finds out the baby isn't his.

The film goes back and forth through the last few decades giving us ample opportunity to piece together the scrappy narrative that mainly concerns Giamatti's 3 marriages.

Lefevre commits suicide shortly after the couples' estrangement, Giamatti relocates to Canada taking a television producer gig, and in the process meets a wealthy Jewish princess played to perfection by Minnie Driver.

Driver, of course, becomes wife #2. The comic predicament that Giamatti finds himself in is that he falls head over heels in love with another woman (Rosamund Pike) right after getting married to Driver - at their wedding reception mind you.

A further wrinkle is provided when a junkie boozer writer wannabe friend (Scott Speedman) from Giamatti’s days in Italy shows up wasted at his lakeside cottage. I won’t spill the beans on what transpires there, but I will tell you that this is where Addy’s future murder accusations come into play.

The always welcome Dustin Hoffman has a short, but sweet role as Giamatti’s retired policeman father Izzy who amusingly doles out questionable advice while constantly embarrassing his son.

Those looking for a rom com (as the trailers are packaging it as such) are likely to be a bit overwhelmed by the sad intensity of much of “Barney’s Version”, but those looking for a drama with depth are going to find a lot to wallow in.

That said, there are a lot of genuinely funny moments in this film. There's a lot of sharp wit, but the tone is set mainly by humor of the cringe inducing variety.

The chemistry between Giamatti and 3^rd wife Pike is strongly affecting although we know it’s a doomed union. When the suave Bruce Greenwood appears and hits it off with Pike (much to Giamatti’s chagrin) we know for sure that their marriage is in trouble.

But we knew that from the start as we have seen the elder broken down Giamatti – a very convincing makeup job that scored an Oscar nomination for Adrien Morot – and know that’s he will most likely die alone.

So Giamatti sits and stews in his memories, repeatedly requesting Leonard Cohen songs on the radio, and ignoring the attempts to care for him that his daughter (Anna Hopkins) makes.

Cohen croons “Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in,” - a fitting epitaph for a man whose romanticized yet jagged memories are all he has left.

More later...