Ladies and Gentlemen--Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965)

This is a fun documentary for anyone who appreciates the evolution of Leonard Cohen's career. Before he was a man with a guitar...before his gravely voice and hat, he was a cleancut stand-up poet wearing suit and tie. Although, it was the early 1960s, he was already a notable writer with records of his readings on the market. He was also documenting his career for posterity. Funny thing is that he does not even look all that young. I guess he was in his late twenties at the time.

Leonard had been blessed with an idyllic childhood in Montreal, where his parents began shooting movies and photos of him as a young child. He is shown on bike, sled, skate, and ski. He talks about the first rebellious act as the refusal to sleep and we see shots of the late-night coffee houses and nightclubs where young people listened to the poets, who were the rock stars of the day. He began to view himself as a social critic. Always a poet. The film simply watches Cohen throughout the course of his day during a simpler time in history.

Soon after that I happened to watch Isle of Wight, made just five years later. The post-Woodstock mega music festival on a tiny island off the south of Great Britain attracted 600,000 young people who had come to see Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, and others. We see a more laidback Leonard Cohen perform Suzanne, his hair shaggy and wearing a scruffy fatigue jacket.