Butler's Cinema Scene

Marianne Ihlen, Leonard Cohen in Greece, early ’60s

“MARIANNE AND LEONARD — WORDS OF LOVE” My rating: C+

102 minutes | MPAA rating: R

As the title suggests, “Marianne and Leonard — Words of Love” is a doc about the relationship of singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, the muse for whom he wrote “So Long, Marianne.”

Except that it isn’t really.

Filmmaker Nick Broomfield starts out with the Canadian Cohen — then building a reputation as a poet and novelist — and the Norwegian Ihlen meeting in the early ’60s on Hydra, a Greek island  attracting an international bohemian crowd with its beauty and affordability.

Their relationship continued off and on for decades, ending only with her death in 2016.

Problem is, Broomfield clearly didn’t have enough material to devote an entire feature to the love affair.

So, after a promising beginning, “Marianne and Leonard…” becomes a more or less conventional summation of Cohen’s life and career, with Ihlen showing up intermittently.

Marianne Ihlen shortly before her death in 2016

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Viewers who know something of Cohen’s music but little of his life will get a sort of Cliff’s Notes retelling of the artist’s story — how he segued from literature to music (though not without some major performance anxiety), how he spent his middle age in the pursuit of women (sex addiction does not seem too strong a label), and the five years the sixtysomething Cohen spent in a zen monastery.

Emerging from this long retreat, Cohen discovered that his business manager had squandered his entire fortune, and so at an age at which most of are are  retiring he resumed his performing career.  The film reports  that by the time of his death in his death in 2016 (just a few months after Ihlen’s passing) Cohen had earned a second fortune worth $50 million.

Broomfield employs lots of archival material and conducts new interviews with the likes of Judy Collins (an early champion of Cohen’s music) and former band manager Ron Cornelius. And there are recorded interviews with Ihlen and Cohen.

There’s a fair amount of music, but only in bits and snippets. Those desiring a really thorough examination of Cohen’s output should look elsewhere. The emphasis here is on biography.

But even by that criteria, “Marianne and Leonard…” feels cursory and superficial. It’s a case of bait and switch…the film promises one thing and delivers (sorta) another.

| Robert W. Butler