Marianne & Leonard - Parole D'amore

Patched together from interviews and old home movies, this 100-minute documentary charts the 10-year romance between Leonard Cohen and the woman he called his 'Muse', Marianne Ihlen from Norway, whom he met on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960.

There were other women - many of them, sometimes more than one a day. Free Love, fueled by drugs - acid, uppers, downers - was just an excuse for promiscuity, but promiscuity was mandatory in the 1960s. And not without casualties: suicides and deaths from overdoses. Marianne had a son by her first husband, Axel, whom we see as a happy child on the island. Like other children of that era, he ended in an institution.

Cohen has given us some great songs, and his dark gravelly voice is one of the iconic sounds of the last sixty years, but Nick Broomfield's unflinching documentary paints a portrait of an egotistical, self-destructive man who took up women and dropped them as casually as a Kleenex.

Three months before he died and knowing death was coming, he sent a love-letter to Marianne who was in her final days. So maybe, the man had a heart. His songs seem to say so, but his life rather less so.

I love Leonard Cohen, cherish his music, and enjoy watching films about him - four so far this year. I had high expectations for the Nick Broomfield documentary about Leonard and the love of his life, Marianne Ihlen, a beautiful woman from Norway he met on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960, which was at the time a creative, counterculture hub.

Leonard and Marianne spent almost a decade together on Hydra where Leonard wrote poetry, books, and songs and eventually left to pursue his career as a musician in the world beyond the isolation of the island. Leonard asked Marianne to join him in his life in Toronto, where things were never the same between them, and Leonard's appetite for women moved him out of Marianne's orbit, and she suffered for it, though their love remained.

I have mixed feelings about the film. Marianne was the inspiration behind "So Long, Marianne," "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye," "Bird on the Wire," and "Moving On" from Thanks for the Dance, Cohen's posthumous 2019 album. I guess I hoped this movie might offer more insight into Marianne herself - who by all accounts was a kind and nurturing person, creative in her own right who sang, had aspired to be an actress, and was a painter later in her life; rather, it put Marianne into the uncomfortable, limiting box of "MUSE" for Leonard and others.

It seems her son Axel didn't fare well in this unstructured, free love environment, and Marianne was also affected as her love Leonard flew away to Toronto, New York, and the world stage. It's not a bad film, it just left me feeling sad for Marianne and Axel, whose life stories feel incomplete, and whose potential felt sadly squandered.

At the end of the film a documentary maker read a good-bye letter from Leonard to Marianne in hospital before she died of leukemia. It said, "Well Marianne, it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I've always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don't need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road. Love and gratitude, Leonard."

My first young love was a musician and artist who I love to this day with all of my being, though circumstance drew us apart at the height of our romance. We are still connected, but we leave the past in a glass case on a high shelf so as to not to disturb those portraits of perfection we drew together. A letter from him in my last days would be a most cherished moment to sum up this depth of love from my tenure on this earth. Marianne radiated and glowed as Leonard's letter was read to her. It is a tremendously moving moment, and was worth the whole film to me.

In some ways this film can be seen as an extended victim impact report. It is about Marianne who clearly contributed much to Cohens life on more than one level.

It also leaves a great deal unsaid and hazy. The assumption is that the cultural moments of the day ( and the copious drugs) have blurred the stories in many many ways. Despite all of that it somehow brings the back story of Marianne and Leonard into focus in a very sweet way towards the end of the film.

A number of the interviewees are just plain great. Watch out forAviva Layton who seems to be uncredited but she deserves better.

In many ways this film could have been much better if we had got past the headlines. Archival footage is used but the viewpoint most of the time is very much the male point of view.

This much thoughtless behaviour seems highly paradoxical. The myth of the unreachable poet seems to have attracted considerable numbers of women to the Cohen fan club. They felt like they were being understood. But seems to me; if that were really true - the story would have turned out quite differently.

What lifts this film is the redemption towards the end when we see the famous letter from Leonard to Marianne. In his dying moments Leonard recognised the value of his connection with Marianne. Coverage of the 5 or 6 years in a Buddhist monastery definitely hints at a rebalancing of Cohens' personal life and perspectives.

All in all this is a rather gentle sideways look at a significant relationship but understandably it is overbalanced by the the celebrity aspects of the story.

Marianne herself is present in the story but mostly in a back handed compliment kind of way.

"Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love" (2019 release; 102 min.) is a documentary about the (in)famous relationship between singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen. As the movie opens, we are "July 28, 2016" and the BBC informs us that Marianne has passed away. We then go to the "1970 Isle of Wright" festival, where Cohen asks the massive crowd "Marianne, are you there? Where are you, Marianne?" We then go to the early 60s in Hydra, Greece, where Marianne was living and Leonard, a struggling writer, has just arrived, and they meet by chance.... At this point we are 10 min. into the documentary.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from director Nick Broomfield, best known for his "Kurt & Courtney" documentary in the late 90s. Here he delves into the long relationship between Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, who became Leonard's lover and muse. As a life-long fan of Leonard Cohen, I knew of Marianne vaguely (of course through the song "So Long, Marianne") and knew of their relationship but really nothing more than that. So this documentary was quite revealing in many ways. I was amazed at all of the archive footage that was unearthed from the 60s and 70s that paint such a vivid picture of that era (including footage from Broomfield himself and from D.A. Pennebaker, among others). We hear from Marianne (mostly through Norwegian interviews) and Leonard themselves extensively, but others comment as well (check out Judy Collins and, even better, the extensive comments from Ron Cornelius, Cohen's band mate who sounds remarkably like Bill Clinton). Please note: this is NOT a bio-documentary of Leonard Cohen. Hence, while there are some music and performance clips, they are clearly secondary only. The focus of the film is the long and complicated relationship/friendship between Marianne and Leonard. The last 10 min. of the film are a true emotional gut punch (as we know all along that these two passed away just months apart in 2016).

"Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love" opened out of the blue this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, and I immediately just had to go see it. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was not attended well (exactly 5 people in total). I have no idea how an "average" viewer might watch this documentary, but as a life-long fan of Cohen, I thought this documentary was just lovely from start to finish. (I saw Cohen in concert only 1 time, at the 2009 Coachella music fest, and what an unforgettable set that was.) If you are a Leonard Cohen fan and always have been curious about that mysterious Marianne from "So Lone, Marianne", I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater, on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

An incredibly moving documentary finishing with a film of Marianne's reaction on her death bed to Cohen's final message to her. It dragged a little in the mid section but that is far outweighed by the power of this emotional film.