Cohen Knockoffs
If you were about to sit down and watch a critically-admired documentary about Michelangelo, how would you feel upon discovering that it’s largely about a group of artist-admirers who’ve done tribute renderings — i.e., knockoffs — of his finest work? Think you might feel a tiny bit flim-flammed?
Leonard Cohen, Lian Lunson, Bono
That’s how I felt when I finally saw Lian Lunson‘s Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Take out the shards of Cohen interview footage that Lunson inserts at regular intervals, and Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man is basically footage of a Cohen tribute concert that happened at the Sydney Opera House in January 2005.
The performers include Rufus Wainwright , Kate and Anna McGarrigle , Nick Cave and Martha Wainwright , among others. To me it felt like a rip. It has a lot more soul and integrity than “Beatlemania”, that imitation live-Beatles-performance B’way show that ran from 1977 to ’79, but it’s not that far removed in terms of conception. First-rate art saluted by second-tier performers.
I knew something was wrong prior to I’m Your Man‘s showing at Hollywood’s John Ford Anson theatre last weekend when Ms. Wainwright came out and performed three Cohen songs, and I found myself glancing at my watch during the second number.
Cohen himself can’t sing all that well, but he’s a masterful interpreter. His singing — crooning — is breathy, raspy, intimate. Good as his poetry is, the way he sells his songs is at least half the game.
And as surely as Cohen knows what he’s doing and how to do it, I’m telling you that after watching Rufus Wainwright perform “Everybody Knows”, one of Cohen’s greatest tunes (and one of my personal favorites), I don’t know if I can ever really enjoy it again. Wainwright’s ghastly rendition has somehow killed the magic. I was in pain listening to him. It was almost like watching former House speaker Tom Delay sing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
Coincidentally, I saw MC CABE & MRS MILLER last Thursday night at the Aero in Santa Monica, and Cohen’s tunes are definitely “haunting” and “arresting” and contribute greatly to the mood of this great film.
Cohen is a bit of a sham, so it’s fitting a documentary on him would be too. But if I’m gonna hear his songs I’d rather hear the originals… he has his moments.
Lian Lunson seems like a really smug phony to me.
Nail. Head. Hellllllo.
What a bore.
You left out the lip-sync finale.
Criminy.
As one who believes Leonard Cohen is worth making a fuss about, I gather the good news is that he is working on his own new CD. I’ve read both good and negative reviews of the album Cohen produced with his friend Anjani Thomas,”Blue Alert”. But I’m enjoying it despite the fact the bare bones production often calls out for help from more musicians.In the 1980s with “Famous Blue Raincoat”, Jennifer Warnes and Stevie Ray Vaughan proved good musicians can do good things with Cohen material.If you consider that Cohen has been a published poet since the 1950s, he has been around longer than Bob Dylan or Robert Zimmerman from Minnesota.He is unique though I must confess I did not warm to his recordings until the late 1980s.
The only real reason I can give to anyone to see this film is Antony’s rendition of “If It Be Your Will,” which is goddamn incredible. The rest of it does feel kind of sham-my, although the Cohen stuff is halfway interesting. I definitely expected a lot more from it. And I’m with you Jeff, even though I usually like Wainwright, that “Everybody Knows’ performance was right awful.