Leonard Cohen
Songs From the Life of Leonard Cohen (Columbia) (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
Part documentary and part concert video, “Songs From the Life . . .” follows the melancholy bard on the 1988 tour that followed the release of his great comeback album, “I’m Your Man.” In addition to moving renditions of songs ranging in age from “Suzanne” to “Tower of Song,” this hour-plus BBC production offers a revealing look at Cohen’s development as a poet, songwriter and pop idol. Among the interesting detours taken by the filmmakers are stops at the Chelsea Hotel-where Cohen reminisces about his brief meeting with Janis Joplin, which resulted in a moving autobiographical song-and the Greek island of Hydra, his home for many years and a place of great importance in his growth as an artist (the room where he wrote “Bird on a Wire” exists much as he left it in the ’60s).
Interviews with Judy Collins and Jennifer Warnes are interspersed with footage from his family’s home movies and a 1964 documentary that followed the young poet around Montreal (“the great shining Jerusalem of the North”).
Atmospheric and, at times, inspirational, this is a must-own video for Cohen cultists.
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