Pass the Popcorn: Movies from where I Sit

Last night my husband and I watched the Leonard Cohen documentary, which we'd had for a while but I couldn't convince my husband to view.  And he's the one who has always adored Cohen!  I didn't know the guy existed until I met my husband.  But I'm a convert, and the documentary is beautifully crafted and interesting visually, story wise and musically, with clips from two concerts, the first in New York with a bunch of amazing artists singing his songs and the second in Sydney, Australia, with U2.  Cohen's art shows up prominently as well, and the focus stays professional, not personal, which lifts it above any purient interest.  Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright stand out in a group of singers that are stellar, as does Nick Cave.  Both Rufus and Cave also articulate what his music means to them.  Bono and Edge are surprisingly insightful about Cohen and his poetry and song, and I admire them even more than before. 

Cohen is a beat poet, and Canadian, both of which I'd forgotten, and being made aware of these two core points about who Cohen is and how he got that way really aids the uncovering of his process.  He was a poet first, and the beats are who were his friends.  He's also not American, and his description of the difference between Montreal and New York is telling.  He felt more camraderie and support in Canada, and NYC was a churn of ambition and wish for stardom.  He has balanced those two worlds really well, overall, although his retreat to become a Zen monk on Mt. Baldy in L.A. perhaps shows a cost.  Hearing the origin of the song "Suzanne" alone is worth the viewing of this film.  Whatever he absorbed from his Zen teacher has given him the face in old age of a saint.  He's beautiful now, even if he has felt not attractive, as he says.  The revelation that he wears suits because his dad was in the garment industry and he just feels more comfortable in them is touching.  You sense a kind of honoring of his paternity in his spiffy duds. 

I like the way this film gives Cohen the privacy of his life, and does not trot out his daughter or others, yet the childhood photos are touching.  His dad died when he was eight.  The younger photos are of a happy child, the older of a pensive, sensitive person.  His journey has been illuminating for so many of us, and the beauty of the words and music he has given us a treasure that I for one, had taken for granted and sometimes forgot.  I won't anymore.