(I always thought Screaming Celine had one good song - the Jim Steinman penned 'It's all coming back to me now.' This delusion continued until I heard the Meatloaf / Marion Raven version on Bat Out of Hell III. There after, Celine was restored to her former position as nerve-jangling, screeching banshee with no redeeming qualities.)
So, let me say now, I am a big fan of Leonard Cohen.
As such, it is natural to regard any attempt to pay tribute to an artist's work with some dubiety. There are generally two forms that this takes - "We're not worthy" grovelling or shameless gold-digging. Often it is hard to tell the seperate the two. Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man features a lot of the former, but this tendency towards veneration is balanced by the fact that many of the renditions of Cohen's songs are really good, if predictable.
The film consists of three strands - footage of performances of Cohen's songs by all-sorted performances at a tribute concert staged in Sydney in 2005. Strand two is these same performers discussion Cohen's work and influence. Strand three is Cohen himself talking about his life and work.
This tripartite approach is the films weakness. By pursuing these different routes, the film makers reach no clear end. There is SOME concert footage, but not enough. There is SOME discussion of Cohen's work by his admirers, but probably too much. There is some interesting information about Cohen, from the man himself, but it is too restricted and disjointed to be more than a handful of anecdotes and snapshots of his life and thought. It is fustrating that an interesting observation by Cohen isn't explored further, or that a rivetting performance of one of his songs is followed by Bono, at his most moist-eyed and fawning, offering his arid thoughtlets.
The performances are from a mixed bag of artistes. Stand outs to me included Martha Wainwright's bleak performance of 'The Traitor,' brother Rufus's take on 'Chelsea Hotel,' Anthony's stirring rendition of 'If it be your Will,' and the duet of Julie Christensen and Perla Battala on 'Anthem.' Nick Cave provides a couple of workmanlike performances, though there is a feeling that he should have been able to find something more than he delivers. Jarvis Cocker - perhaps the most interesting inclusion - gives an odd rendition of 'I Can't Forget' - which irritated me at first, but which I've subsequently come to admire.
Which takes us to an important question about the purpose of the concert. As we watch the concert footage, are we seeking a Cohen adulation-fest with his songs rendered straight, as the man himself recorded and performed them, or looking for something strange and unusual which encourages us to see the material in new ways?
Given the conservative choices of performers, and the tribute concert setting, and the songs selected, it's pretty obvious that the producers had the former in mind as they planned the concert, which is a shame. There are precisely three types of people in the world - those who are not familiar with Cohen's work, those who know it and want to be reminded about how nice it is, and those who know it and want to be reminded how great it is. The second category will enjoy this unreservedly. They'll hear great songs well presented, but the exercise is suspiciously middle of the road - here is a good song, sung pretty much the way you know it, so everyone can join in with the chorus. Okay, it isn't likely that many people were brandishing cigarette lighters during 'Hallelujah,' but you can't be too sure ...
Basically, a lot of the concert seemed to be pandering to people's preconceived idea of what Leonard Cohen's music was. If he was truly as influential as is claimed, let's hear the reggae and afro-beat versions of his songs, lets hear them translated into Afghan and sung by choirs of amputees (that might be in rather poor taste, but you get the idea). If Cohen's music is as vital as it is meant to be (and I believe it is), it doesn't need to be preserved in aspic. If Leonard Cohen's fans are as discerning as they think they are (I think, unfortunately, they are not) then they would find the experience at least interesting, perhaps exhilerating.
Most likely, of course, a tribute concert along those lines would be a commercial disaster. It would work, perhaps, as a straight album, or performances recorded in a studio setting, rather than in an opera house infront of thousands of fans wanting to hear the songs the way they like them.
As for the Cohen interviews, they are interesting, but presented in a disjointed manner that allows little more than a general picture of the man to emerge. He was from Canada, he went to New York, wrote a dirty song about Janis Joplin, but wasn't as much of a ladies' man as people think and became a Bhuddist monk. There should be more of this, or less.
Then there are the interviews with the performers and various Cohen devotees. These are, pretty much what you would expect. It is, after all, unlikely someone asked to give an opinion for a project like this would be uncouth enough to say something nasty, and it is even less likely that such a comment would have made it to the final cut. You learn little beyond the fact that those involved really like Leonard Cohen, which is nice, but it is repeated a few times too many. Bono appears, as he seems to do in every thing these days, and provides some unintentional comedy with his too-earnest paeans of praise to the genius of Cohen. He is given too much screen time and he doesn't have much to say, but I suppose the film makers provide some sort of service by capturing him mispronouncing 'chasm' on film. Hah-ha. Plonker.
So, there you go. It is worth watching, though there are a thousand different versions of the concert and film that Might Have Been, all of them holding out more promise than this one realised.
*
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