A song that has passed through the lives of several performers provides the through line for Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song. The documentary by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine arrives on Arte, which is presenting it under the title “Hallelujah”: Leonard Cohen. Behind the song, the filmmakers trace the personal and artistic journey of the Canadian singer, who died in 2016.
The song did not immediately find an audience: Columbia had refused to release the album Various Positions in the United States. Covers by John Cale and then Jeff Buckley helped set it on a new course. The film interweaves this story with Cohen’s archives, notebooks and testimony from those close to him.
Our review of Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song:
“Hallelujah” is Leonard Cohen’s best-known song. But it is also, above all, one of the most covered songs in the world. And it is this global hit that directors Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine chose as the narrative thread for their wonderful documentary, “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song.” The Canadian artist spent nearly eight years writing it. A perfectionist and a true workaholic, probably never satisfied, the poet wrote more than 150 different verses before completing this magnificent song. But it did not achieve the success he had hoped for when the album was released. Why? Columbia Records refused to release the album in the United States. It would take the sublime cover by John Cale, and then especially the one by Jeff Buckley, to give “Hallelujah” a new lease on life.
Following this thread, we learn more about the personal and artistic life of this great artist. Deeply shaped by spirituality (he spent six years in a monastery not far from Los Angeles), Leonard Cohen never gave up, even going back on tour in 2012 and 2013 at the age of 78, after being swindled by his agent.
The artist’s life is skillfully told through high-quality archival footage and interviews with those close to him (singer Sharon Robinson, producer of “Various Positions” John Lissauer, Larry “Ratso” Slowman, a longtime journalist at Rolling Stone and a close confidant of Leonard Cohen...). Above all, it is a pleasure to hear Leonard Cohen’s deep, measured voice again, thanks to recordings “Ratso” kept on cassette tape.Several artists, including Rufus Wainwright, Amanda Palmer, Regina Spektor and Brandi Carlile, loudly proclaim their love for the Montreal-born artist and poet and for this song, which each of them was eager to cover. The documentary even goes so far as to include an (excessive) number of versions performed on TV talent shows (American Idol, The Voice...). This mass of echoed covers also has a tendency to leave us a little lost. But perhaps, in the end, it is meant to show us that the one and only version is the one by Leonard Cohen, which he performed live through to his final concert in 2013?
A documentary worth watching and rewatching to discover more about the fascinating life of one of our era’s great artists and understand the creation and evolution of a global hit. However, if you don’t like “Hallelujah,” give it a miss, because you’re likely to hear it quite a few times during the film’s nearly two-hour runtime!
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