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Review: A deep dive into Leonard Cohen’south ‘Hallelujah’
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FILE – Leonard Cohen is photographed in Toronto on Feb. four, 2006. Cohen is the subject field of the documentary “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Vocal.” (Aaron Harris/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
Aaron Harris/AP
Leonard Cohen was deep in his career when he finally finished “Hallelujah.” Well, the get-go version of “Hallelujah” — there would exist many, many versions when all was said and done. He’d toiled on the lyrics for vii years. Yet when he submitted the album, “Various Positions,” to his longtime tape visitor Columbia Records in 1984, the company’due south president Walter Yetnikoff decided not to release it in the U.S. What would become Cohen’s seminal anthem was dead on arrival.
But in the new documentary “ Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Vocal,” in theaters Friday, directors Dayna Goldfine and Dan Gellar examine how despite the odds, the song managed to accept on a life of its own thanks, in varying degrees, to Bob Dylan, John Cale, Jeff Buckley and Shrek. Yes, Shrek. At present, four decades subsequently its initial recording, information technology’s downright ubiquitous, a regular feature in movies, television shows, and singing competitions effectually the world.
It’s an interestingly stitched together flick that starts at the end — his final functioning in 2013, singing “Hallelujah,” of grade — and rewinds to the get-go of his songwriting career to trace how he got there. It feels, in some ways, like 2 different films: The first part is a standard biographical documentary that and then shifts focus to “Hallelujah’s” resurrection outside of Cohen, earlier finally turning attention dorsum to Cohen and his triumphant final tour. As the championship says, information technology is a journey and a long ane at that.
The filmmakers are enamored of their eloquent subjects, from Judy Collins and composer/arranger John Lissauer to a childhood friend and his rabbi Mordechi Finley. Ane of the principal voices is journalist and author Larry “Ratso” Sloman who interviewed Cohen many times over 30 years and whose tapes of those interviews are used to allow Cohen speak for himself. The archival footage, too, is pretty extraordinary and elegantly paired with Cohen’s music throughout.
Much of the film is devoted to chronicling Cohen’s own spiritual journey and his evolving relationship with his Jewish faith, from his poesy to his later on years at a zen center atop Mt. Baldy. Singer Regina Spektor marvels nigh his graciousness at his Coachella performance in 2009, saying that information technology was similar Cohen was didactics the audition how to exist good.
And yet, for all the talk nigh and praise for his seeking, this is a film that seems completely uninterested in the fact that he’due south the begetter of two children. We meet photos of them as babies with their mother during an offhanded mention that his family was breaking up. A reporter mentions the kids later, just only in context of clarifying that their mother Suzanne Elrod was not in fact the adult female he was singing about in Suzanne.
There could be many reasons for this, including possibly honoring the wishes of his grown children, or wanting to focus on the piece of work. Merely the absence of whatsoever acknowledgement makes this endeavour at a deep, holistic portrait of Cohen experience incomplete at best. In that location is more than time devoted to explaining the aesthetics of “Shrek” than his relationship with his kids.
Or maybe they just weren’t actually part of the path to “Hallelujah,” though his girl did have a kid with Rufus Wainwright, who is responsible for one of the more famous covers of the vocal, featured on the wildly successful “Shrek” soundtrack.
A lot of credit for the prolonged life of the song is given to “Shrek.” Even though movie soundtracks have diminished somewhat in cultural currency, information technology is hard to underestimate the power of hearing a neat song for the first time in a film.
It is interesting, though, that it seems to have been John Cale’s cover that became the nigh influential. He stripped downwardly the arrangement, took to the pianoforte, belted out the lyrics and turned “Hallelujah” into a melodic anthem. Jeff Buckley even said that though Cohen wrote the vocal, it was Cale’southward version that he was roofing. No one, information technology seems, from Brandi Carlile to Bono to Eric Church building, is out in that location singing Cohen’southward version.
In one interview, later on “Hallelujah” placed No. one (“The X Factor” contestant Alexandra Burke), No. 2 (Jeff Buckley) and No. 36 (Cohen) in the UK in 2008, Cohen said he idea “People ought to stop singing it for a piddling while.” Sloman believes he was kidding, but it hardly even matters at this point. The song became bigger than Cohen and seems destined to live on in the civilization for years to come up.
“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journeying, A Song,” a Sony Pictures Classics release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Flick Association for “brief stiff language and some sexual material.” Running time: 115 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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MPA Definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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Follow AP Moving-picture show Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr
Source: https://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/article/Review-A-deep-dive-into-Leonard-Cohen-s-17271645.php
