LEONARD COHEN LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 1970
Rated: NR Runtime: 64 mins.
Fri, Feb 19 – Thu, Feb 25.
Director Murray Lerner IN PERSON! Sat, Feb 20!
Nearly 40 summers ago on August 31, 1970, 35-year-old Leonard Cohen was awakened at 2 a.m. from a nap in his trailer and brought onstage to perform with his band at the third annual Isle Of Wight music festival. The audience of 600,000 was in a fiery and frenzied mood, after turning the festival into a political arena, trampling the fences, setting fire to structures and equipment – and stoked by the most incendiary performance of Jimi Hendrix’s career.
As Cohen followed Hendrix’s set, onlookers and (fellow festival headliners) Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson, Judy Collins and others stood sidestage in awe as the Canadian folksinger-songwriter-poet-novelist quietly tamed the crowd. Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Murray Lerner (From Mao To Mozart, Festival, Message To Love), perfectly captured Cohen’s performance. Likewise, Columbia Records staff A&R producer Teo Macero did a brilliant job of supervising the live audio recording.
Included are live versions of classic songs from the first two Leonard Cohen LPs: “So Long, Marianne,” “The Stranger Song,” “Hey, That’s NMro Way To Say Goodbye,” “Suzanne,” “Bird On The Wire,” “You Know Who I Am,” and “The Partisan” as well as spoken word and poetry. Produced and directed by Murray Lerner. Running time: 64 mins.
“Mr. Cohen was a man on a mission and somewhato of a missonary from another world. And, as he sings one dark thought and feeling, his long, lyrical, at times surrealistic words chasing one another, you experience the ancient arts of the shaman one more time.” – Manohla Dargis, N.Y Times
“5 Stars… songes slip away like dreams: As one line begins to make sense, the next evaporates into madness. The Isle Of Wight crowd watches transfixed, as if in collective reverie: four decades on, filmgoers just might too”. – Jay Ruttenberg, Time Out N.Y.
“Murray Lerner’s mersmerizing docu closely chronicles Cohen’s set… Must-see footage for fans and for those less hip to Cohen’s early stylings”. – Variety.