"Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song" is a new or "new" documentary as this one premiered already back in 2021, but it took almost until 2023 for the film to reach Germany. I myself am a really big Leonard Cohen fan and what seeing him three times it was I think perform during the final years of his life meant to me I cannot put into words, so I went on one of the first occasions I could to give this film a watch. It was early afternoon during the week, so I was surprised that the room was really full. Positively surprised. On one occasion during the film Cohen says that his career will live on for quite some time after his life and he is certainly correct there. But let's stay with the basics first now: The two writers and directors are Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine and these two have not only been part of the industry since the 1980s, but they have also already collaborated already in the 1980s. Long and fruitful relationship. Not the most prolific though as they did not even make it to double-digit territory films since then, but still. Their work is then more about quality than quantity I assume and with this film here I would certainly agree. Music is apparently nothing they have elaborated on a lot in the past already, so a bit surprising to see them in charge here. The film runs for slightly under two hours, so it is a long watch, but not extremely long. The title tells nicely about the focus. It is basically a mix of Leonard Cohen's life (and career) and his song "Hallelujah", one of his most known, if not the most known number. We find out who else performed the song, how Cohen came up with it and simply why it is considered such a special number many years and decades after its creation and why it still inspires so many people nowadays in the 2020s. You see I gave this film a pretty high rating and I think it is deserving. I would still say that I prefer the other Leonard Cohen documentary that was released a while ago and I think there was focus on his life as a whole and also on the women (and it was quite a few) that were by his side and especially those that stayed by his side. There they had for example major focus on the songs "So Long, Marianne" and "Suzanne" and who the lyrics were about. But we talked about that documentary before and today we talk about this one here.
I must say I had goosebumps at the very start already when they show us the Hallelujah performance by Cohen and thus also the final moments of his touring career and I checked when I got home and saw that this was from Auckland in New Zealand. I was genuinely baffled to read the number of concerts he played in his last ten years. May he rest in peace. So yeah, for me it was a really lucky situation somehow that this evil woman stole all his money and that he was almost forced as a consequence to perform again. Probably thousands, more likely hundreds of thousands people will agree with me there that they could see him live. Of course, there is also focus on his years when he lived as a monk and focus on many, many other areas from his tumultuous life. I will not go totally into detail there, best is if you watch the film yourself. Instead, let's talk about "Hallelujah". The song. I was familiar with how many really, really adored the version from Jeff Buckley and I was also aware of his tragic fate. I myself am not too big on his version and I kinda support the theory that it was perhaps his untimely death that helped his rendition become such a triumph for many. I hope this does not sound too mean, but I mean he said it himself that he hopes Cohen will never listen to it. And yes, it sounds definitely odd when people say that somebody will perform "Buckley's song" there. Saying "Buckley's version" is already pretty edgy. Still, may Buckley also rest in peace. I really, really adored John Cale's version though. That one I did not know before watching this documentary, but it will certainly find its way onto my MP3 player.
As much as I liked the beginning of this documentary with Cohen performing in Auckland, as disappointed I was with the ending. Well, kinda disappointed. It included scenes from a tribute concert from shortly after Cohen's death in 2016. The one singer they showed us is k.d. Lang, another fairly famous musician from Canada, just like Cohen. She, however, does almost nothing for me at all and I am also not sure why she has her name written like this instead of using capital letters like everybody else does. I did not like her version one bit and I also do not like the other music I have heard from her. Disappointing way to end this movie, even if it may make sense chronologically somehow. Or I can say at least that the film does end nicely with the closing credits then when we hear Cohen perform the song "You Got Me Singing", a number I did not know before watching this film. One of his newer songs and I think he did not play it at any of the concerts where I saw him live. But now we are drifting a bit away again, so back to the film's core. We find out about other versions of Hallelujah that made a decent impact. There is a girl playing the tune on her violin. From Youtube apparently. There is a winner of "Britain's Got Talent" it was I think and her release of "Hallelujah" broke several records. There is even a reference to "Shrek". So you see that the song was really a big phenomenon. Still is. Also interesting to see how they removed some of its lyrics for "Shrek". They interviewed the woman who was in charge of the decision to include the song, remove some parts of it and also decide in the end which version would make it to the movie. She was not directly linked to Cohen and same is true for Glen Hansard, whose inclusion here surprised me, even if I love his Oscar-winning number, but there are many interviewees who are. Musicians and others. Judy Collins is maybe the most known. Her anecdote about the young and incredibly shy Leonard I heard before and it still feels intimate nonetheless. Sharon Robinson stood on the stage so many times with Leonard and worked with him for decades.
Add to that John Lissauer and Larry "Ratso" Sloman. Was it the latter about whom we find out that he loves to sleep until 11 a.m.? At least did back then, not sure what it is like today. Anyway, listening to him was quite fun, also and maybe at least partially because of the foul language as well. He seems quite a character anyway with all the stories he collected over the years of his writing career. You will listen to more musicians that have made an impact, even if they are not super famous (anymore). These would be Regina Spektor, Rufus Wainwright and Eric Church. You can check out the list yourself if you wanna know. I must say Eric Church's version I was also not too big on. What Cale did with it stays my number one comfortably ahead of the rest here. Also big respect to him because the song was really not a huge hit when he came up with his take there. By the way, Bob Dylan also gave it a try. Did not do too much for me either. Still props to him for seeing the potential of the song. It is really ridiculous how the the new boss of Columbia Records rejected Cohen back then and it nice to hear in an interview from much later that Cohen was happy to find a bit of revenge there with how many people ended up loving the song. One of them who definitely loved it, probably still loves it is Richard Belzer. And I love him, not just because of his L&O character, but also in general. Such an interesting character. Pretty cool to see him host a show with interviewees back in the day and he also seems/seemed to have decent humor. So many talents. If he gets his own documentary one day and I hope he will, I will definitely watch it too. Hopefully, he will stay with us for many years to come, even if he is kinda on the retired side now. At least in terms of (television) acting. Let me apologize for this little off-topic interruption, but well Belzer was part of this film too, so not 100% off-topic and he just deserves the praise in my opinion.
Now let us get back to this film though: It is nice to see it scored some awards attention at least from the critics and who knows, perhaps more will follow. I think maybe people who know Cohen and adore him less than I do will not like this film as much, but I think for the many people out there not familiar with him, especially the younger ones, this can make for a really good watch and introduction to Leonard Cohen's life and music and who knows perhaps they will also check out some of the gigantic body of work he came up with over his career. I already said that I liked to see the stage performances and there was one really cute moment that showed us how he left the stage presumably at the end of a concert and what stayed in the mind there was how he left it. Moving like a little boy, so full of joy. You could see what he meant when he said that the fact that he had to go on tour again also helped him get rid of some demons that piled up over they years or that is roughly how he described it. Of course, it must have been awesome for him to see how much he is still adored and appreciated and remembered by audiences all over the planet. There is also the inclusion and brief mention of the album "I'm Your Fan" (love the title as a reference to one of Cohen's most famous songs) that had many successful artists cover Leonard Cohen songs. For me the standout was probably the most known band included therein and that would be R. E. M. Fittingly, they also recorded one of my favorite Cohen songs and that is not (only) because said song has a connection with the city I originate from and have lived in almost my entire life. As for Leonard Cohen, I will not say that his voice has gigantic range, but he had awesome recognition value, was a really gifted poet and knew exactly what he had to do to succeed and I think thus fully deserved all his success. So does this documentary. See it!
I must say I had goosebumps at the very start already when they show us the Hallelujah performance by Cohen and thus also the final moments of his touring career and I checked when I got home and saw that this was from Auckland in New Zealand. I was genuinely baffled to read the number of concerts he played in his last ten years. May he rest in peace. So yeah, for me it was a really lucky situation somehow that this evil woman stole all his money and that he was almost forced as a consequence to perform again. Probably thousands, more likely hundreds of thousands people will agree with me there that they could see him live. Of course, there is also focus on his years when he lived as a monk and focus on many, many other areas from his tumultuous life. I will not go totally into detail there, best is if you watch the film yourself. Instead, let's talk about "Hallelujah". The song. I was familiar with how many really, really adored the version from Jeff Buckley and I was also aware of his tragic fate. I myself am not too big on his version and I kinda support the theory that it was perhaps his untimely death that helped his rendition become such a triumph for many. I hope this does not sound too mean, but I mean he said it himself that he hopes Cohen will never listen to it. And yes, it sounds definitely odd when people say that somebody will perform "Buckley's song" there. Saying "Buckley's version" is already pretty edgy. Still, may Buckley also rest in peace. I really, really adored John Cale's version though. That one I did not know before watching this documentary, but it will certainly find its way onto my MP3 player.
As much as I liked the beginning of this documentary with Cohen performing in Auckland, as disappointed I was with the ending. Well, kinda disappointed. It included scenes from a tribute concert from shortly after Cohen's death in 2016. The one singer they showed us is k.d. Lang, another fairly famous musician from Canada, just like Cohen. She, however, does almost nothing for me at all and I am also not sure why she has her name written like this instead of using capital letters like everybody else does. I did not like her version one bit and I also do not like the other music I have heard from her. Disappointing way to end this movie, even if it may make sense chronologically somehow. Or I can say at least that the film does end nicely with the closing credits then when we hear Cohen perform the song "You Got Me Singing", a number I did not know before watching this film. One of his newer songs and I think he did not play it at any of the concerts where I saw him live. But now we are drifting a bit away again, so back to the film's core. We find out about other versions of Hallelujah that made a decent impact. There is a girl playing the tune on her violin. From Youtube apparently. There is a winner of "Britain's Got Talent" it was I think and her release of "Hallelujah" broke several records. There is even a reference to "Shrek". So you see that the song was really a big phenomenon. Still is. Also interesting to see how they removed some of its lyrics for "Shrek". They interviewed the woman who was in charge of the decision to include the song, remove some parts of it and also decide in the end which version would make it to the movie. She was not directly linked to Cohen and same is true for Glen Hansard, whose inclusion here surprised me, even if I love his Oscar-winning number, but there are many interviewees who are. Musicians and others. Judy Collins is maybe the most known. Her anecdote about the young and incredibly shy Leonard I heard before and it still feels intimate nonetheless. Sharon Robinson stood on the stage so many times with Leonard and worked with him for decades.
Add to that John Lissauer and Larry "Ratso" Sloman. Was it the latter about whom we find out that he loves to sleep until 11 a.m.? At least did back then, not sure what it is like today. Anyway, listening to him was quite fun, also and maybe at least partially because of the foul language as well. He seems quite a character anyway with all the stories he collected over the years of his writing career. You will listen to more musicians that have made an impact, even if they are not super famous (anymore). These would be Regina Spektor, Rufus Wainwright and Eric Church. You can check out the list yourself if you wanna know. I must say Eric Church's version I was also not too big on. What Cale did with it stays my number one comfortably ahead of the rest here. Also big respect to him because the song was really not a huge hit when he came up with his take there. By the way, Bob Dylan also gave it a try. Did not do too much for me either. Still props to him for seeing the potential of the song. It is really ridiculous how the the new boss of Columbia Records rejected Cohen back then and it nice to hear in an interview from much later that Cohen was happy to find a bit of revenge there with how many people ended up loving the song. One of them who definitely loved it, probably still loves it is Richard Belzer. And I love him, not just because of his L&O character, but also in general. Such an interesting character. Pretty cool to see him host a show with interviewees back in the day and he also seems/seemed to have decent humor. So many talents. If he gets his own documentary one day and I hope he will, I will definitely watch it too. Hopefully, he will stay with us for many years to come, even if he is kinda on the retired side now. At least in terms of (television) acting. Let me apologize for this little off-topic interruption, but well Belzer was part of this film too, so not 100% off-topic and he just deserves the praise in my opinion.
Now let us get back to this film though: It is nice to see it scored some awards attention at least from the critics and who knows, perhaps more will follow. I think maybe people who know Cohen and adore him less than I do will not like this film as much, but I think for the many people out there not familiar with him, especially the younger ones, this can make for a really good watch and introduction to Leonard Cohen's life and music and who knows perhaps they will also check out some of the gigantic body of work he came up with over his career. I already said that I liked to see the stage performances and there was one really cute moment that showed us how he left the stage presumably at the end of a concert and what stayed in the mind there was how he left it. Moving like a little boy, so full of joy. You could see what he meant when he said that the fact that he had to go on tour again also helped him get rid of some demons that piled up over they years or that is roughly how he described it. Of course, it must have been awesome for him to see how much he is still adored and appreciated and remembered by audiences all over the planet. There is also the inclusion and brief mention of the album "I'm Your Fan" (love the title as a reference to one of Cohen's most famous songs) that had many successful artists cover Leonard Cohen songs. For me the standout was probably the most known band included therein and that would be R. E. M. Fittingly, they also recorded one of my favorite Cohen songs and that is not (only) because said song has a connection with the city I originate from and have lived in almost my entire life. As for Leonard Cohen, I will not say that his voice has gigantic range, but he had awesome recognition value, was a really gifted poet and knew exactly what he had to do to succeed and I think thus fully deserved all his success. So does this documentary. See it!