Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man

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Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man

List Price: $14.98
Lowest Price: $7.95

Product Description:

Sure to please both die-hard Cohen fans and the newly initiated this film is full of captivating music and offers an intimate portrait of a truly singular artist poet songwriter cultural icon.Special Features: Never-Before-Seen Musical Performances Readings and Conversations Director Commentary Delected Scenes (subject to change)System Requirements:Running Time: 103 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: PG - 13 UPC: 031398204343 Manufacturer No: 20435

Amazon.com:

Leonard Cohen--songwriter, poet, former monk, ladies man, and sharp dresser--receives a near-hagiographical treatment in I'm Your Man, a part concert-part documentary in which his work is interpreted by an array of singers. Cohen tributes are nothing new, what with Jennifer Warnes' Famous Blue Raincoat and the multi-artist compilations Tower of Song and I'm Your Fan having preceded this one. But music producer Hal Willner, who has spearheaded similar projects focusing on Thelonious Monk, Kurt Weill, Harold Arlen, and Charles Mingus, is especially skilled at putting together rosters of diverse and unexpected artists, and he's done it again here, matching superstars U2 with the likes of Nick Cave, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Kate's offspring Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Beth Orton, Antony Hegarty (of the group Antony and the Johnsons), Jarvis Cocker, and others. Whether all of this works or not will naturally depend on the viewer's point of view. Cohen is no one's idea of a great singer, but he's certainly a distinctive one, with his ocean-deep basso profundo and the slow insinuations of a guy who, having been a Zen monk, certainly understands the virtues of patience; his lyrics, too, are sui generis, personal but rarely mawkish, at once plain and cryptic. To these ears, performances by Orton ("Sisters of Mercy"), Teddy Thompson ("Tonight Will Be Fine"), and the Handsome Family with Linda Thompson ("A Thousand Kisses Deep") come closest to capturing Cohen's spirit without actually impersonating him. On the other hand, the overly mannered stylings of the McGarrigles and Wainwrights are an acquired taste, at best; Rufus' louche posing, affected vocal delivery, and cute, tango-esque arrangement of "Everybody Knows" pretty much overwhelm the song (he's much better on "Chelsea Hotel No. 2"), and Martha's "The Traitor" is scant improvement. Cohen himself appears on just one number ("Tower of Song," with U2), but interview segments are scattered throughout director Lian Lunson's film; now in his seventies, he seems to delight in perpetuating his own legend, serving up elusive comments like "I was alive in the horror" and "Things got easier when I stopped expecting to win." Bonus material includes deleted scenes and more. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews:

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-22
like going to church
this DVD is so inspiring and enlightening that it is like going to church yet without the dogma. I was unaware of the depth of cohen's work and view it again when I need a spirit lift or a connection with reality. What a genius!

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-18
A Prized Purchase
This video and the CD of the taping was an eye opener into the world of Leonard cohen. I had never really knew of his work before. What a treasure he is and the performances were top notch. I'll view this and listen to the CD again and again. What an heirloom!

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-10
A essoteric man
He is very intriging to me as a woman....writes poetry and produces beautiful much for those that lend the ear to the kind of words and music that he leads...it does not lead him.

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-06
It's Not Worthy
It's true: It's not quite a documentary (as has been pointed out in other reveiws), and not quite a concert video--but it tries to be both, and instead of a graceful dive or an unassuming cannonball it belly-flops, flailing arms and all. With a subject like Leonard Cohen, this "documentary" would be hard-up to out-do itself in clumsiness, and overall anticlimax. It is mostly Leonard Cohen songs, played by other artists (some good ones, at that) as a tribute, with short interjections of comments about or by Cohen. There were a few good interpretations of songs (Nick Cave's was surprisingly one of my least favorite), but the slow motion effect as the artists finished the songs came off more as kitsch than appealing to any aesthetic sense. Where any one novelty or effect was added to this film, it inevitably took away more than it gave.

*Spoiler?* At the end, the part that attempts to tie this whole thing together, when Cohen is playing with U2, it almost seems mocking, or at seems contrived as if trying to evoke a false sense of something glorious.

To try to tie this whole review together *ahem* more constructively , it would have been better to choose this to be purely footage of the concert in tribute to Leonard Cohen (and maybe kept the artist interviews to be included as special features); or to have augmented the interviews with and about the man, and the archival pictures and footage, to flesh out the documentary tendencies that reared their face from time-to-time.

Three stars because, well, you could do worse than to hear Leonard Cohen songs re-interpreted with a side of commentary. For instance, maybe John Mayer songs reinterpreted with a side of commentary.

Rating:
Date: 2008-05-26
Leonard (When by. . . others) Cohen
There is reaction when I choose to play Leonard Cohen on the stereo at home:
"Please," my wife has said, "Not that again!"
"Chinese water torture," one of my sons has said.

They just don't get it. (And with some justification. Cohen's voice is not G-d's best instrument.) Yet his voice is usually the voice I want to hear perform his songs. I can't think of another voice for "The Future" or "Closing Time" or "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" or. . .Occasionally, however, there is the magic of a more talented voice (with considerable emotional involvement invested) performing a Cohen song. There is Joan Baez with "Suzanne". There is Roberta Flack with "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye". And, of course, there is Jeff Buckley with "Hallelujah".

Throughout this evening with (or without) Leonard Cohen, I wanted to hear him perform, not others. But then came the magic. . . There was Martha Wainwright with "The Traitor". There was Antony with "If It Be Your Will" Their voices, their interpretations have added to the power of a Cohen song. Theirs are the performances I want to listen to again.

"I pray," Cohen says in interview, "to have a response to that which is clearly beautiful." That is what his poetic music is about. That is what everyone--and the artists involved in this tribute not specially mentioned above do--get. . . I'll work on the family.