Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen

Last updated
Ladies and Gentlemen...
Mr. Leonard Cohen
Directed by Don Owen
Donald Brittain
Written byDonald Brittain
Produced by John Kemeny
CinematographyPaul Leach
Laval Fortier
Roger Racine
Edited byBarrie Howells
Production
company
Release date
  • 1965 (1965)
Running time
44 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen is a 1965 National Film Board of Canada documentary about Leonard Cohen, co-directed by Don Owen and Donald Brittain, written by Brittain and produced by John Kemeny. [1]

Contents

The documentary captures Cohen's career as a noted poet and novelist before he launched his career as a singer-songwriter in 1967. The original idea for the film had involved documenting a tour of Canadian poets, including Irving Layton and Earle Birney; however, that idea was abandoned when the filmmakers decided the other poets would not serve as charismatic film subjects. [2]

Contents

Shot and edited in the Direct Cinema style, the filmmakers follow Cohen through his hometown of Montreal, Quebec, as he moves from poetry readings at McGill University, Cohen's alma mater, to a television appearance with his friend and fellow poet Irving Layton and host Pierre Burton, to his childhood home sitting with his mother, to his "three-dollar-a-night hotel room" in a shady part of the city. The audio is a mix of traditional voice-over, interviews with Cohen, along with Cohen's own poetry. The poems read are mostly taken from The Spice-Box of Earth and Flowers for Hitler , including:

Themes

The central themes of the documentary include fame, authorship, image, irony and artifice. Cohen himself comments multiple times on the artificial nature of documentary filmmaking and storytelling. Throughout the film Cohen is aware that he is on camera, and actively shaping his own image, along with the filmmakers. Cohen is in fact a collaborator in this artificial process to the extent that the film ends with a sort of postscript, where Cohen has been invited to watch the film in a screening room alongside Don Owen. Cohen remarks on the fraud of the camera crew showing him pretend to sleep. Cohen then discusses how strange it is that he let them film him in the bathtub. In the footage they watch, a naked Cohen writes "CAVEAT EMPTOR," Latin for "buyer beware" on the wall next to the bathtub. Cohen says "I had to act as a double agent... let the [audience] know that this is not entirely devoid of the con." Earlier, following his TV appearance with Pierre Burton, Owen asks Cohen what Burton wanted from him and Cohen replied "He wanted me to cut my con out... What's the true story? Is wrestling really fixed?"

Unlike contemporaneous Direct Cinema documentaries on similar subjects, most notably Lonely Boy, by Roman Kroitor and Wolf Koenig, Cohen is given licence to comment on the proceedings, as and even after they happen. Where in Lonely Boy Paul Anka is only the subject, and often the dupe, of Koenig and Kroitor's investigation of fame and artifice, in Ladies and Gentleman..., Cohen is in on the con as a collaborator and co-conspirator. To this end, Cohen is allowed to manufacture irony, along with the directors throughout the film, including as he watches himself fumble with horizontal blinds in his hotel room and comments ironically, "I was always good with my hands."

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Film Board of Canada</span> Canadas public film and digital media producer and distributor

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions since its inception, which have won over 5,000 awards. The NFB reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It has bilingual production programs and branches in English and French, including multicultural-related documentaries.

Roman Kroitor was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as a pioneer of Cinéma vérité, as the co-founder of IMAX, and as the creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic 3D animation system. He was also the original inspiration for The Force. His prodigious output garnered numerous awards, including two BAFTA Awards, three Cannes Film Festival awards, and two Oscar nominations.

Donald Code Brittain, was a film director and producer with the National Film Board of Canada.

Don Owen was a Canadian film director, writer and producer who spent most of his career with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). His films Nobody Waved Good-bye and The Ernie Game are regarded as two of the most significant English Canadian films of the 1960s.

In the Labyrinth(French: Dans le labyrinthe) was a groundbreaking multi-screen presentation at the Labyrinth pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It used 35 mm and 70 mm film projected simultaneously on multiple screens and was the precursor of today's IMAX format.

<i>Lonely Boy</i> (film) 1962 Canadian film

Lonely Boy is a 1962 cinéma vérité documentary about the former teen sensation Paul Anka. The film takes its name from Anka's hit song, "Lonely Boy", which he performs to screaming fans in the film. This short documentary makes use of hand-held cameras to record intimate backstage moments. It was produced by the National Film Board of Canada and co-directed by Roman Kroitor and Wolf Koenig.

Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed is a 1979 documentary film critiquing bureaucracy, written and directed by Donald Brittain and produced by the National Film Board of Canada and CBC-TV.

Rebels with a Camera is a 2006 documentary film by Quebec director Denys Desjardins produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). The title is a reference to the film Rebel Without a Cause

Hugh O'Connor was a Canadian director and producer who worked for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). His best- known film is the ground-breaking In the Labyrinth (1967), but his promising career ended shortly after that film's release when he was murdered while filming in Kentucky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard Cohen</span> Canadian singer-songwriter and poet (1934–2016)

Leonard Norman Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, social and political conflict, and sexual and romantic love, desire, regret, and loss. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, he received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.

Fields of Sacrifice is a 1964 documentary by Donald Brittain about Canadian war dead. The film visits former battlefields where over 100,000 Canadian soldiers lost their lives in World War I and World War II and examines Canadian military cemeteries and memorials from Hong Kong to Sicily.

Wolf Koenig was a Canadian film director, producer, animator, cinematographer, and a pioneer in Direct Cinema at the National Film Board of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Daly (filmmaker)</span> Canadian film producer, film editor and film director

Thomas Cullen Daly was a Canadian film producer, film editor and film director, who was the head of Studio B at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

Home Movies: The Great Canadian Film Caper was a Canadian television documentary miniseries which aired on CBC Television in 1966.

Documentary '60 is a Canadian documentary television series which aired on CBC Television from 1959 to 1960.

Terence Macartney-Filgate was a British-Canadian film director who directed, wrote, produced or shot more than 100 films in a career spanning more than 50 years.

John Spotton C.S.C. was a Canadian filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada.

John Kemeny was a Hungarian-Canadian film producer whom the Toronto Star called "the forgotten giant of Canadian film history and...the most successful producer in Canadian history." His production credits include The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Atlantic City, and Quest for Fire.

Stanley Jackson (1914-1981) was a Canadian film director, producer, writer and narrator with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

The 18th Canadian Film Awards were held on May 6, 1966 to honour achievements in Canadian film. The ceremony was hosted by Rich Little, and marked the first time that the ceremony was broadcast live by CBC Television.

References

  1. ↑ "Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen". Film Collection. National Film Board of Canada Web site. 1965. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
  2. ↑ Gravestock, Steve (Oct 6, 2005). Don Owen: Notes on a Filmmaker and His Culture. Cinematheque Ontario. pp. 43–48. ISBN   0-9689132-4-5.
  3. ↑ "Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen". onf-nfb.gc.ca. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.