YesNo & Leonard Cohen
While he was recovering from his back injury and preparing for the consequently deferred July start of the 2010 Tour, Leonard Cohen signed on as a voice actor, along with Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, and others, in YesNo, a seven-minute English-language short based on the book of poetry by Dennis Lee.
These excerpts from BDJ Films describe the video:
YESNO is a playful view of a planet on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Humphrey Bogart meets Werner Herzog in the heart of darkness. A conjurer shuffles bison, emu and orca in a game of extinction. Leonard Cohen voices a last tango over a flood of images that mix live action and animation, poetry and music, calligraphy and DNA …
Based on the 2006 book Yesno, by eminent Canadian poet Dennis Lee, this seven-minute film takes an new approach to transforming poetry into cinema. Dennis Lee’s words are voiced by a pantheon of Canadian poets, including Lenard Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, D’bi Young, Karen Solie, and Lee himself. Jiving between hope and despair, and between dark comedy and tender pathos, an apocalyptic suite takes us from the folds of the cerebral cortex to the jungles of Fitzcarraldo and The African Queen. Sleight-of-hand by conjurer DAVID BEN forms the connective tissue. The original score/soundscape comes from award-winning composer Owen Belton, who has created music for the National Ballet of Canada (Emergence). The director of photography is Nicholas De Pencier (Act of God). The animation director is Nick Fox-Gieg, who won the award for best animated short (The Orange) at the 2010 SXSW film festival. Yesno was produced, directed and edited by Brian D. Johnson, veteran film critic at Maclean’s magazine.
Video: YesNo
The video is cued to begin at the point Leonard Cohen takes the role of narrator. Video by bravofact
Credit Due Department: The photo atop this post was also found at the BDJ Films site.
