Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love
(USA, 2019)
directed by Nick Broomfield
This film feels like an odd but effective mashup of idol-worship and warts-and-all expose of Leonard Cohen. Yes, Marianne Ihlen, Cohen's muse and the inspiration for his song "So Long, Marianne," does receive top billing along with Cohen, but the movie really belongs to the singer-songwriter. Even by the end, we really don't know much more about her than that she met Cohen on the Greek island of Hydra after leaving an abusive relationship with her son's father, Norwegian novelist Axel Jensen, and that after Cohen decided she would be his muse, they had a passionate love affair that neither of them really ever got over, despite his frankly awe-inspiring trail of failed relationships and one-night stands.
Several of Cohen's friends and colleagues cheerfully dish the dirt on Cohen, admittedly with great affection, even when they are marvelling at his behaviour. My favourite is author and editor Aviva Layton, who is clearly enjoying herself in the role of the person you really, really want to sit next to you at a dinner party while she tells you all the behind the scenes details of the Canadian literary world of the 1960s and 1970s. "Poets do not make great husbands," she tells the camera dryly, and she should know, having been married for 20 years to Irving Layton. I perked up every single time she appeared onscreen; every word from her mouth is a gem and I would happily watch a documentary entirely composed of Aviva Layton being interviewed about various literary figures and her philosophy of life.
The archival footage from Hydra is idyllic and beautiful, but the ugly reality behind the beauty is revealed when we find out that many of the artists and their children who lived in the island's creative community (like George Johnson and Charmian Clift) suffered from alcoholism and death by suicide in later life. As one adult who grew up in the community comments, the atmosphere of drugs, alcohol, and open marriages took a toll on everyone, particularly the children, who craved more stability had not chosen this kind of life.
Despite his later life as an ascetic in a Zen monastery, Cohen is not immune from the hedonism of the 1960s; far from it. His former guitarist and his road manager both gleefully recount tales of 23-day acid benders and concerts where all the musicians were stoned on Quaaludes. If you ever wondered how accurate the movie Almost Famous was, well, it seems to check out based on this film. There is one memorable sequence where Cohen decides mid-concert that things are not going so well and employs a rather novel method of reviving himself, announcing that he needs to shave his face and he will return to resume playing after having scraped his face with a dry safety razor. Apparently he returned to the stage beaming, with a rash on his face, and finished the concert to everyone's satisfaction, including his own.
And yet, despite the revelation of some truly selfish and self-destructive behaviour on Cohen's part, he does not come off as unlikeable. Perhaps this is because Broomfield also includes clips from Cohen later in life when he is more self-reflective and self-aware. It's not hard to see what Marianne saw in him, and it is sweet to hear his letter to her when they are both in their 80s and she is on her deathbed. I have no doubt his words were sincere. I just wish we could have learned a little bit more about the woman he addressed them to.
