a documentary looks back on the incredible destiny of this song that has become universal

An entire documentary to tell the story of a song? The bet seems daring. Except it’s aboutHallelujaha complex hymn to an extraordinary destiny whose story is an opportunity for directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine to look at the personality of its author, the Canadian poet and singer Leonard Cohen, who died in 2016 at the age of 82.

Hallelujah, almost everyone knows it, even without knowing it. Popularized in 1994 in an angelic version by Jeff Buckley, to the point that many believe it is his, this song, taken up today in weddings and tele-hooks around the world, has had a tortuous trajectory that was worth d to be told. Because before becoming one of Leonard Cohen’s flagship songs, it was shunned for a long time, ignored and almost never even saw the light of day.

A dark handsome man with a reputation as a seducer, Leonard Cohen was first and foremost a poet and novelist and it was late in his thirties that he turned to song. He then made a place for himself for his beautiful deep voice and his personal, melancholy and detached poetic way of questioning human nature and the mysteries of life in his lyrics. But around the time he starts working on Hallelujahhe has just turned fifty and his career is slipping.

True modern prayer, Hallelujah mixes the profane and the sacred, the carnal and the spiritual, the intimate and the universal, the trademark of its author. Swarming with metaphors, it is as luminous as it is cryptic: Cohen explores his complicated relationship with God, but also the intricacies of love, combining erotic and biblical references in the same breath, so that it is open to everyone’s interpretation. “There is a religious Hallelujah but there are many others“, underlined Leonard Cohen. “When you look at the world there is only one thing to say and that is Hallelujah!“

Composed (surprise!) on a small Casio keyboard, this nugget gave him a hard time: Leonard Cohen took seven years to finalize this masterpiece, multiplying the versions and writing during the process some 180 verses in total lying in a tight handwriting on dozens of notebooks that we see in the film.

In the middle of the nine tracks of the album Various Positions, yet it goes unnoticed at first. Firstly because this disc produced in the company of the composer and producer John Lissauer, present in the film, is refused at the last moment by the record company Columbia, on the grounds that it is not commercial enough. This refusal will affect the singer a lot and the album will finally be released confidentially in 1984, in Europe and on an independent label.

Fortunately, the song does not completely fall into oblivion. John Cale (Velvet Underground) was the first to draw attention to her in 1991 by covering her in a magnificent nude version, alone on the piano, on a tribute compilation to Leonard Cohen on the initiative of the Unbreakable (I’m Your Fan), and this a few years before Jeff Buckley. Bob Dylan also interprets it on stage from the end of the 80s. But against all odds it is a cartoon, Shrekwhich will explode its notoriety in a stratospheric way in 2001, adapted by Rufus Wainwright for the soundtrack, which will flow to 2.5 million copies in the world, of course purged of sexual allusions.

Since Shrek, Hallelujah has become much more than a song, it’s an international phenomenon taken up, for better or for worse, by countless artists, from Bono to Bon Jovi and Andrea Bocelli, by karaoke enthusiasts and by dozens of hooked up TV contestants, sang at weddings, funerals, and on all occasions. In the documentary, we see a Leonard Cohen delighted with the first covers, emphasizing “irony“of all this and not unhappy to finally hold”his revenge“.”Let’s say I got my little revenge. Of course, I’m glad my song was covered. But it would be nice if people stopped singing it for a while.“

These sequences of interviews with Leonard Cohen are the most joyful of the film with the excerpts of moving concerts given by the minstrel in the last decade of his existence, which show him in great shape, elegant and with a laughing eye.

The testimonials of producer and composer John Lissauer and French photographer Dominique Issermann, Leonard Cohen’s companion at the time of writingHallelujah are illuminating, as are the analyzes of some of his friends, a rabbi and the journalist from RollingStone Larry “Ratso” Sloman who interviewed Cohen many times. Other contributors, sometimes questioned solely for having taken up Hallelujah, are less interesting, unnecessarily weighing down the final third of this two-hour-long documentary. We just wish we had more Cohen and less talk.

Gender : documentary
Filmmaker and Producer : Dayna Goldfine and Daniel Geller
With : Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley…
Country : England Duration: 1h58
Exit : October 19, 2022
Distributer : The Jokers / The Bookmakers
Synopsis : He created one of the most legendary songs in history. At the end of the 1960s, Leonard Cohen signed, like Bob Dylan, at Columbia, and became a legend. But his career took an unexpected turn. Discover the story that will lead him to rebuild and assert himself as one of the most important artists of our time. An unforgettable stroll through the song that marked our lives.