It’s A Beautiful Day In Leonard Cohen’s Neighborhood
This brief video excerpt from The Song of Leonard Cohen, the 19801 documentary by Harry Rasky, the much lauded filmmaker who produced such definitive profiles as Tennessee Williams’ South and Homage To Chagall, is rich with memorable scenes and comments.
Filmed in 1979 at Cohen’s home in Montreal, the main action of this 4 minute, 18 second sequence consists of Leonard Cohen, seated on his balcony,2 translating the demo tape3 of Un Canadien Errant4 from French to English and responding to Rasky’s leading questions.
The title of this post, in fact, is taken from this exchange:
Rasky: Do you feel like the person in that song ["Un Canadien errant"], wandering around, mariachi music?
Cohen: A little bit.
My other favorite exchange in this scene takes place when Rasky, who never espoused a detached, neutral relationship with his subjects and appears eager to present Cohen in the best possible light, if not deify him outright, lobs this softball question (partially framed as a comment), “Some people might say why do you want to live out over all those shacks and old balconies,”only to have Cohen wryly respond “Not very many people.”
The audience is also afforded a Cohen-narrated tour of the immigrant neighborhood in which he then lived, a brief shot of the children playing, and the ultra-cool, sunglasses-clad, barefoot, Euroswank version of Leonard Cohen watching the local street scene.
The video even contains a feat of derring-do.
Hazel Field, credited for the art on the Recent Songs cover, climbs over the railing of an adjacent balcony, steps over open air to grab the railing of Cohen’s balcony and finally lands on that platform.
Enjoy.
Scenes From Song Of Leonard Cohen
- Various references date the movie to 1980 and an approximately equal number list it in 1981. In his insightful review, Dick Straub notes that The Song of Leonard Cohen “was first shown on CBC in 1980,” which is good enough for me. [↩]
- While this structure (see screenshot) is ubiquitously called, within by the film dialog and in the commentary on the film, the “balcony,” were it transported to Chicago, it would become a “back porch.” (The “back porch” designation would be effective until it collapses, after which it would be known as a “deathtrap.”)
[↩]
- The demo tape is from the 1979 Leonard Cohen album, Recent Songs [↩]
- “Un Canadien Errant” (“The Lost Canadian”) is a song written in 1837 by Antoine Gérin-Lajoie after the Lower Canada Rebellion of that year in which some convicted rebels were condemned to death or exiled for armed insurrection. The melody is from a Québécois folk tune. To a few, it remains a patriotic song in Canada. Leonard Cohen recorded “Un Canadien errant” on his 1979 Recent Songs album. His original song “The Faith” off his 2004 album Dear Heather is based on the same melody. Quoted from Nationmaster Encyclopedia [↩]
o oficjalnych teledyskach Leonarda Cohena | z szuflady nocnego grajka // Dec 11, 2008 at 10:34 am
[...] na nie po wejściu na YouTube z wpisu Allana. Polecam zapoznanie się z filmem, który zamieścił, szczególnie z fragmentem, w którym [...]