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Streaming Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen Online. Movie Title: Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen Average customer review: Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen

I honest rented this astonishing DVD about Canadian novelist/poet/singer/traveller Leonard Cohen and am so contented I did… it is a petite gem of a movie, giving us a first-hand leer into the young Cohen as he, in his unruffled, comely arrangement, lives and learns and laughs about life, in whatever order the day seems to bring him.

Filmed in Dim & White and released in 1965, the film was made as a ‘documentary,’ and as such takes us ‘behind-the-scenes’ into a slightly-staged version of Cohen’s day-to-day life, complete with scenes of him waking up, bathing, shaving, hanging out at the local bar or a friend’s house with his closest friends, at a book signing, and walking in the Montreal park where he played as a child. The film was shot before he became distinguished as a singer, and as such it focuses mainly on his work/career as a poet and novelist.

The film was made by the Canadian National Film Board, and as such has a dated, now-quite-funny voice-over about Cohen. At the same time, the people leisurely the film definetely “got” Cohen — the film is made with the same type of mild humour that Cohen himself possesses. I reflect one of my accepted moments in the film shows Cohen being interviewed by a stern, older man who insists that Cohen couldn’t possibly be a poet without things that “bother” or upset him. The man kind of insinuated that Cohen must have a mission of some sort, something deep — that by being a poet, he must have been trying to address some nefarious in the world and do something which would back just it. But Cohen would have none of that. Looking like he does for mighty of the film: composed, a bit smug, self-consciously heavenly and quick-witted, Cohen quietly responds, in a soft-spoken manner similar to that of B&W footage I’ve seen of fellow ’60’s poet Jim Morrison, “well, what I’m really enthusiastic in is a set of grace. When I wake up in the morning, I have to know that things are in balance….” The interviewer gives up completely then, and instead of getting any more miffed or confused, finally says, “okay, now you’ve lost me.” And then you know it’s Glean One, Cohen and Film; Net Zero, Stuffy Clueless Interviewer.

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I Highly Recommended this film to fans of Cohen’s music, his writing, or others of the wanna-be beatnik variety. There are plenty of unlit turtlenecks, steaming cups of coffee, intently gazing eyes, sly humorous humour, stern shaded glasses, and seductively charming lines. His deadpan sarcasm and semi-stand-up comedy routines work fair as well in 2001 as they did in 1964. His dashing, unexcited, tongue-in-cheek humour reminds me worthy of a reading I saw recently of fellow Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood. They both had me laughing in the aisles. But it was lustrous laughter, if that makes sense.

Better than a trek to the local coffehouse for that poetry slam — well, objective as noble, but this one gives you a peer of history. I found it moving. Forty years later, the Man tranquil has It.

This DVD (and presumably the VHS version too) is peaceful of 2 parts: a 1960’s era Canadian Film Board “documentary” about Cohen, and 4 short experimental music-video-like segments.

Fans who know Leonard Cohen only through his music can demand either to be disappointed (because the film largely predates and ignores this aspect of his life), or furious to learn that Cohen is very powerful a world-class poet first and a musician second.

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The texture of the documentary is quaint, even humorous to those of us who grew up with MTV. It follows Cohen though his daily life, as he speaks to everyday people on the street and crowds of fans in auditoriums, and feels strangely like a propaganda film at times.

The “selected discography” on the DVD is suprisingly useless and doesn’t bother to list most of his albums.

All in all, an intriguing glance at Cohen in his spry younger years. Recommended.
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