Mendalla
Finding Leonard
Posted on: 09/02/2011 21:05
I am a longtime fan of Canadian singer-songwriter-poet-author Leonard Cohen. That much is probably apparent from the number of times I've joined in discussions about him or mentioned him in other threads. But the latest discussion over in Social got me thinking about where and when I first found Leonard Cohen given that, while I like his eighties material and first encountered him in that decade, I ultimately prefer his sixties and seventies material.
I think, though I'm not certain, that it was the 1983 video production entitled I Am a Hotel. Cohen co-wrote it, appears in it as "The Resident", and provided the soundtrack, which consists of five of his songs, including "Suzanne". It's often described as a long form music video in the vein of Thriller, which isn't too far off the mark. Basically Cohen's character acts as a kind of narrator, linking together vignettes about various people working or staying in Toronto's King Edward Hotel. The vignettes themselves are mostly dance pieces (Ann Ditchburn was the choreographer and appears in it herself) set to Cohen's songs.
Alas, it doesn't appear to be available either online or in DVD although it apparently came out on VHS in 1996. Someone has posted a so-so copy of the video in 3 parts on Youtube, but it's low resolution and it's origins as a transfer of the VHS are obvious. It seems like a natural for digital re-master and release in some form. The problem is likely the format (1/2 hour music video) and origin as a TV program shot on video rather than on film. Not likely much money in it, but maybe one could stream it free or as some kind of premium content on a video site or a Cohen-related site. Wonder who has the rights?
Youtube posting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnoK45ZC47Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdJMfDQ6vn4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS9o7yOkEc0&feature=related
Mendalla
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Elanorgold
I haven't heard of that film,
Posted on: 09/05/2011 19:16
I haven't heard of that film, though I might have seen clips from it and not known it.
I first met Leonard in the video for Dance me to the End of Love, which I loved. I was maybe 17. What a great song. And the video set in the hospital was excellent and fit in with what else I was exposed to at the time, "one flew over the cuckoo's nest", the Ramones: Teenage Lobotomy and I Wanna be Sedated..., and other literature and thoughts about psychosis and literature... and of course the ever present love and obsession in my own life...
So I bought the tape with that song on it, and enjoyed that. I really like The Law, about the borders you cannot go beyond. It was much later I was exposed to his 60's material, through my husband who got into him once we came to Canada if I remember rightly... And those are wonderful songs. He was so poetic... I love how romantic and introverted Leonard was then, the dark breathy opposites in his writing... We watched a really great documentary about Leonard in those early days, in b&w...
Then came Suzanne, which was a theme song for a bosom friend of mine when I was 17/18. She was also keen on his work.
GeoFee
One rightly called poet,
Posted on: 09/05/2011 21:27
One rightly called poet, shaper of sacred spaces for love's realizations.
Yet somehow just another one of us.