Just finished the eight part series that depicts the relationship between laughing Len and his muse Marianne Ihlen. I wasn’t optimistic but it kept me watching until the end. I was unfamiliar with the two leading actors Alex Wolff and Thea Sofie Loch Naess but I thought they were both excellent (especially Thea).
The real star of the show is the Island of Hydra the actual location where much of the story is set. I gather it was quite a challenge for the film crew negotiating the narrow hilly lanes of the Island.
Some of the scenes are a little too deliberately shoe horned around some of Cohen’s most familiar songs. Nicely done with the title track but when it got to “that famous line” from Chelsea Hotel No 2, I wondered if they would dare, and of course they did.
If you know where to look, a few scenes recreate famous photographs of Cohen’s life too.
The depiction of the Hydra bohemian gathering in the early 1960’s offers several side characters and stories showing suggesting that the creative lifestyle although beautiful is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Overall I enjoyed it, and it’s led me to revisit some of Leonard Cohen’s early material too. Look out for Thea Sofia Loch Naess, I think she’ll do rather well for herself. She also crops up in the Netflix disaster series La Palma released just before Christmas.
Anyone else watched it?
Haven’t seen the show but you might enjoy this novel on the same topic
I’ll give it a watch, I visited Hydra in the eighties partly because of L Cohen and I’d love to go back. Maybe this year.
Big Leonard fan but with so much excellent other stuff to watch and given that it’s unlilkely that dramatic developments here will include L and M infiltrating a gang of international spies/drug dealers/terrorists doubt will bother watching this
I for one would happily watch a series about Detective Cohen of the Jazz Police, or a Netflix drama with Cohen as a whistleblower: Everybody Knows, or a BBC Sunday night series with him as a resistance hero: The Partisan. What about a rather restricted Strictly spin-off with Laughing Len: Take This Waltz? C’mon, TV bosses, these series practically write themselves!
“Ooh, I say!” as the late Dan Maskell was prone to ejaculate
Brilliant idea @Captain_Darling
Bird on a Wire – Canadian bird-spotting with Cohen
You want it darker? Len offers his DIY and home improvement tips
First we take Manhattan – Hipster global travel tips from the guru of cool
Tower of Song – From Pisa to the Tower of London, Cohen ponders the architecture of famous towers and celebrates them in song
Ooopw! Too many LC TV programmes??
I’ll get my famous blue raincoat!
Spoiler Alert
To be fair to the series, he does get arrested at gunpoint in Cuba, so you are on the right dramatic lines .
In the unlikely event SLM gets a second series, they could focus on LC’s pursuit of the armaments loving head honcho of a sinister organization called SPECTOR
Shame it’s on ITVX which I find completely unusable.
For some reason ITVX won’t play on our TV I have to watch on my tablet or cast it to the TV from my tablet.
Oof, just googled Marianne Faithfull to make sure she’s OK.
I just checked the set list for Sisters of Mercy concerts – still playing that half-German song as far as I can see.
I lived in his hometown of Montreal for a few years. The nearest East-West street to my residence was Rue Marie-Anne, which I thought was pretty cool! I did not realise until after his death that he also had a residence right next to Rue Marie-Anne about a 10 minute walk from my place. How appropriate!
Nothing special about the place at all, it blended right in with other properties on the same street. I doubt he was there all the time (and especially not in winter), but I must have walked past his place dozens of times.
I just watched Leonard Cohen: If It Be Your Will, a movie of a tribute concert organised by his son Adam. It’s just wonderful – very well put together with carefully chosen archive film, interview and the concert itself, which features the likes of Ron Sexsmith, The Lumineers, Betty Lavette, Lana del Rey, Feist, Elvis C, K D Lang and inevitably Sting. It’s not your usual celeb tribute cringefest – the performances are heartfelt and well judged, and nobody tries to ‘be’ LC.
It’s strangely under the radar – according to JustWatch it’s only available in Canada, there are no trailers online, and yet here I am in Australia and I’ve just watched it.
Definitely worth keeping an eye out wherever you are.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34748001/
Now I am confused. I love Leonard Cohen and about 3 months ago I watched So long Marianne on Amazon Prime – it was a film not an 8 part series.. I thought it was rubbish – only redeemed by some good scenes of Hydra.
Is this the same or something totally different? The leads in this were pretty awful to be honest although she was easy on the eye.
Two different films
Amazon:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13286368/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_so%2520long%2520
TV series
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19369032/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_so%2520long
There was also a documentary about the hippie life on Hydra which I have seen and featured LL. Some of those there were basically committing a form of child abuse. All these different films is very confusing
Leonard Cohen: If It Be Your Will – it be on the Eel Market…
It’s on my SBS watch list here in the Lucky Country.
You’ve talked me into trying it.
Ditto.
Will be in Hydra in May.
I’ve gone down a bit of a Hydra, Len, Johnston/Clift rabbit hole.
In relation to the Cohen/Clift relationship as portrayed in the series – didn’t happen, according to this learned article. And that it is manufactured so that it is now generally accepted as fact raises serious issues.
https://insidestory.org.au/the-affair-that-never-happened/
We’re watching it now, and it’s reasonable to say that the casting of Cohen is not flattering.
Whining self obsessed mummy’s boy …in the series.