Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man is part concert, part interview, and in-between are all these amazing musicians (Rufus Wainwright, Bono, Jarvis Cocker, etc.) waxing philosophical on the musical genius that is Cohen. I, however, learned absolutely nothing about Leonard Cohen from this pretentious and arrogant documentary.
I'm not a Cohen fan, personally. I think he's one of those musicians who's worshiped by other musicians so that they can sound really cool and pompous when they say, "You don't know who Leonard Cohen is?" All the musicians talk about Cohen's music being so spiritual and transcendental, and they describe Cohen more like a messiah than a musician.
We never see a full facial shot of Cohen during the interviews, always keeping a part of him secret. Cohen spends more camera time reading his poetry than talking about his life. It's as if we're not worthy of seeing and truly knowing "the great" Leonard Cohen. Or maybe he's just too great and mysterious to be understood by the simple lay people.
However, I did enjoy the Rufus Wainwright rendition of "Hallelujah" with the three-part harmony. That was pretty. The rest was a highbrow bore.
I'm not a Cohen fan, personally. I think he's one of those musicians who's worshiped by other musicians so that they can sound really cool and pompous when they say, "You don't know who Leonard Cohen is?" All the musicians talk about Cohen's music being so spiritual and transcendental, and they describe Cohen more like a messiah than a musician.
We never see a full facial shot of Cohen during the interviews, always keeping a part of him secret. Cohen spends more camera time reading his poetry than talking about his life. It's as if we're not worthy of seeing and truly knowing "the great" Leonard Cohen. Or maybe he's just too great and mysterious to be understood by the simple lay people.
However, I did enjoy the Rufus Wainwright rendition of "Hallelujah" with the three-part harmony. That was pretty. The rest was a highbrow bore.
