Leonard Cohen: LADIES & GENTLEMEN, MR. LEONARD COHEN

Jokermen

The hosts analyze the 1964 CBC documentary 'Ladies & Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen,' exploring how it captured the singer's early charisma. T

Key takeaways

• The documentary was originally intended to profile multiple Canadian poets but shifted focus entirely to Cohen due to his singular presence.
• The film functions much like a modern-day Instagram story, focusing on lifestyle, fashion, and social 'vibes' rather than just poetry.
• Hosts compare the 1964 cultural landscape to a time when poetry was viewed as a potentially mainstream popular medium.
• Cohen used his early media appearances to carefully construct a persona of being both cosmopolitan and prepared for instability.
• The documentary captures Cohen before his more 'dark and twisted' reputation from later works like 'Beautiful Losers' became solidified.

Main topics

• CBC Documentary Analysis
• Leonard Cohen vs. Bob Dylan
• 1960s Cultural Identity

Notable quotes

What if there was a Canadian guy who had swag?

Conclusion

The episode provides a deep dive into how early film media helped shap

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Joker Man Podcast is brought to you by DistroKid and their new direct-to-fan tool, allowing any artist to sell merch. DistroKid Direct allows artists to create a merch store in minutes without any upfront costs or any technical skills or know-how. They'll take care of all the logistics and the nitty-gritty, and as with distribution through DistroKid, they never take a cut of the proceeds. You, the artist, keep 100 % of your earnings. Once again, that's DistroKid Direct. Open a store today at distrokid.com slash direct. The Speaker 4 (1:32) other time I was in quarters such as these was in the Verdun Mental Hospital. Speaker 2 (1:41) Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Joker Man Podcast, the Leonard Cohen Podcast. Mr. Leonard Cohen Podcast. The Mr. Leonard Cohen Podcast. I'm Evan. I'm Ian. And today we are talking about the documentary film. That's right. From, is it 1964? Film 64 released, 65. That's right. In 1964, Leonard Cohen was, well, do you have some more? official background that you want to give before we start getting into it? Speaker 3 (2:15) There's not really a time. This is a snapshot of a moment in time, this documentary, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen, Speaker 2 (2:24) from Speaker 3 (2:24) which we drew a little bit of intro sound clippage. People are probably familiar with that already. Flowers for Hitler had just been published and he was going on a speaking tour, I believe, throughout Canada, hitting a couple of universities and libraries across the country. I think he had initially been just one of several subjects for this documentary that was supposed to be about an emerging class of new Canadian poets of whom Leonard was just but a one. And then it turned out that none of the other guys were interesting or ready for the camera or really worthwhile at all. And so they refashioned this into a documentary exclusively about our man, Mr. Leonard Cohen. And the film dares to pose the question, what if there was a Canadian guy, but he... Out Speaker 5 (3:20) of the crowds of Montreal has come a singular talent with four books under his belt and a growing reputation. He is not primarily a stand-up comic, but a novelist, a poet, and a very confident young man. Speaker 2 (3:38) Yeah. This is a production of the National Film Board of Canada in association with the Canadian Board of Getting Leonard Cohen Infinite Pussy. That's right. Speaker 3 (3:52) He's, um... He's a charming young man here, this documentary. It's available for free on YouTube. We'll have a link in the episode right up here so everyone can play along at home. 43 minutes and change, I believe. And it's a very fun, it's an easy one, I gotta say. This is not, this is not don't look back, you know. This is certainly not eat the document, even though it's filmed right around the same time. I've been thinking about that a little bit. It's funny to think of... The stuff we've been talking about with Leonard, like with all the poetry stuff in particular, in comparison to, you know, think about the Beach Boys, like 1964, this is like all summer long. Brian is having his first mental breakdown on the plane, refusing to go on tour. Or Bob, obviously, is doing another side of Bob Dylan. He's driving across the country, riding Mr. Tambourine Man. He's gearing up to go electric the following year. That all feels very far away from what we've been talking about so far, to me at least. I don't know about you. Speaker 2 (4:52) I think it's kind of like a glimpse into another dimension, which just was the world in 1964, where it seemed probably more likely to more people that poetry would just get really popular than that popular music would start becoming like poetry. And it was a time before there had been a codified vision of like rock star slash poet, like the hyper literate rock star figure. And I think the most interesting thing here is like, you get a sense that that is what people wanted and they didn't know exactly what that was that they wanted. They would soon find out that it looks a lot like Bob Dylan in 1965. and six. But in 64, even Bob wasn't quite there yet. Obviously, they're two very different guys, but thinking about them while watching this, you can kind of imagine that they're both coming to similar conclusions from different directions. Speaker 3 (6:03) Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously, we know that popular music, rock music, whatever you want to call it, ends up being the most effective and certainly the most financially rewarding and the most culturally impactful way to do that, you know, beginning in the mid-60s and on from there. But even in these early years, these early stages, like, I see Leonard driven by some of the same things I think Bob is driven by in this portrait of him from 1964. I mean, Bob comes up in his own... sort of sideways way, you know, coming in from the back door, so to speak, through folk music, through, you know, the Greenwich Village scene, and ends up converging more towards the mainstream, you know, the popular culture making popular music records. And Leonard kind of does the same thing on a different timetable and in a different way, but they do both end up converging. not on the same path necessarily, but on a more similar path, even though they are starting out from very different places. I think they both relish being the star of the show. They'd like to just be up there, out there, a name on the marquee, a face under a bright light on a stage. And I think that we say poetry, and he is reading poetry at certain points throughout this. uh, throughout this documentary, whether he's reading that poetry at colleges in front of audiences, or he's doing like a, you know, a voiceover of some of the poems that we've read, uh, in our earlier episodes. But there are like the, like the opening scene, he's kind of just up there riffing. Like he's not, it's clearly like rehearsed and, and he has memorized this speech, but it's not a poem. And it's not a comedy routine necessarily, but he's getting. He's getting lots of laughs from the audience. This scene that he sets about going to visit his friend in the asylum and telling the story about, you know, being mistaken for an inmate. He's killing for some Speaker 2 (8:12) reason. He's Speaker 3 (8:13) shredding. He's honestly just shredding. Speaker 2 (8:15) He's destroying. They're just like, ah! It Speaker 4 (8:19) had been a hot afternoon and I had removed my jacket, as I am wont to do. Speaker 4 (8:29) I left it with my friend, who though mentally ill was no thief. Speaker 2 (8:39) He's like, I removed my jacket. And they're losing their minds. They're just Speaker 3 (8:44) ready to give it all up. And I love that they're like cutting in these little close-ups of women in the audience just gazing at him, you know, with these big, enormous eyes. Everyone, you know, trying to make fuck-me eyes at Leonard Cohen, which, you know, who can blame them? I would have been doing the Speaker 2 (8:59) same. That is really the main thing about this whole film is just like... I mean, I think you said it well. What if there was a guy and he was cool? Yeah. Like, this is basically what this film, more than anything, is about. His poetry is not really the main thing. It's more about, like, how is he as a guy walking around? What are the things he's interested in? And what kind of clothes does he wear? And what Speaker 3 (9:27) restaurants does he go to? What do his friends look like? What does he do at parties? Speaker 2 (9:31) Yeah, it is kind of just all this stuff that... is basically what people have to do on their own these days. You know, these little, like, glimpses into the social, the personal, that people now mainly dole out strategically on social media. Yeah, it's kind of like an extended Speaker 3 (9:55) 44-minute-long run of Instagram stories. Speaker 2 (9:58) Funded by the Canadian government. Speaker 3 (10:00) Yes. Speaker 2 (10:00) In other words, it's a profile on... Leonard Cohen, but of a specific kind that is really just about style more than anything. It's not about anything more important than vibes. So it is interesting. I mean, I think that he comes across as a compelling subject for this. And it is... Also notable, I think, just watching it, knowing what we know, a bit more of the background, a bit more of the mythology and the story, anything that we're coming into this with. It's kind of like, oh, that's where all this received wisdom comes from. A lot of it. If nothing else, this film proves to have served a very effective role in giving Leonard Cohen his first PR campaign about like... Why would you pick up his book of poems rather than someone else's? Speaker 5 (10:54) Cohen collects his letters and makes certain he is heavily photographed. He does this simply because he feels he's becoming an important writer and that such material will someday be of value. And yet he is totally devoid of arrogance and is deeply concerned with the style of his soul. Speaker 3 (11:14) He's clearly very image conscious, you know, from the beginning in a very effective manner. You know, he's very well kemped, obviously looks fantastic, clearly knows how to dress himself and carry himself. He's also, you know, there's a couple talking heads, you know, with Leonard where it's just like interviews with him, you know, facing the camera and he's kind of talking about himself and he's... You know, his personality, I think, really comes through there in a way that you don't necessarily get from the books themselves, at least the books that have been published up until this point, 1964. You know, I think a lot of what I love about Leonard, I think a lot