Mark Reviews Movies: HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song, Sony Pictures Classics

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 30, 2022

Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" will be performed, re-recorded, and sung in public or quiet moments long after most of us are dead. It has become an entity unto itself, beyond Cohen's original version, his revamping of the lyrics a few years after, and the various cover versions from a diverse and seemingly unending collection of musicians over the years.

It's a melancholy hymn about the search for faith and lost love, and it's also a joyous anthem that people sing at weddings to celebrate hope and true love. Not many songs have that kind of range of interpretation, while also crossing into mainstream culture, but this is undeniably one of them.

Now, though, we have the big question in regards to Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song: Can an entire documentary be made about a single song? Filmmakers Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine certainly believe so, even if their film does a little bit of cheating by encompassing the narrative of Cohen's entire career before and after that song's existence.

Some of that, such as the context of how the tune was recorded for an album that was intentionally thrown into attempted obscurity by the record label, is vital. Similarly important are discussions of how Cohen's personal faith, from the Judaism of his birth to the Zen teachings he adopted into his spirituality later in life, informed much of his music—especially this song. One can't say or sing the word "hallelujah" without some religious connotations behind it, but part of the genius of Cohen's song is that is about longing and pain and joy within the spiritual plane and, especially in that second and more secular version, on the earthly realm.

That we keep going back to the song, even as the subject of the film is finally breached, is further evidence that Geller and Goldfine are on to something with their project. It's that strong a work of art, which has endured its initial obscurity, its resurrection as a cover version with niche popularity, its breakthrough into the mainstream by way of an animated film about an ogre, and the potential cynicism that might come from how often and how many contexts people decide to use it. In 20 years, these filmmakers could probably return to the subject of "Hallelujah" and trace its next steps. If the song's popularity continues, as it surely will, it seems unlikely they'd be pressed to find material about its path in the future.

Right now, though, there is this film, which is detailed about both Cohen and the song, without attempting to push meaning on either of its primary subjects. In terms of Cohen, the filmmakers do chart his career, which started relatively late for a musician (He was in his 30s before first performing live) and continued until his death in 2016 (His penultimate album was released about two weeks before he died, and a final one was released posthumously). This isn't necessarily a biographical account, mind you, since the film bypasses anything before his music career began and, apart from matters of spirituality, makes only passing references to his personal life.

This is the right approach in this case, at least. Cohen's life has been documented and detailed before, and some of this material, such as his stay at a Zen monastery and his return to music after an unexpected financial downturn, already feels as if it's covering well-trodden ground. The song is what matters, and after a hasty but informative trip through Cohen's career and a discussion of his faith until the 1980s, "Hallelujah" does take the spotlight.

Geller and Goldfine make another smart move immediately, and it's a decision that reflects the belief of John Lissauer, Cohen's writing and recording partner for the album Various Positions (The pair's professional relationship had a gap of eight years before this reunion, and archival interviews with Cohen about his creatively disastrous pairing with Phil Spector are enough to explain the return to Lissauer). Lissauer was there for the final composition (Cohen repeatedly refuses to admit how many years it took him to write and decide upon which of the 150 or so verses he composed for the tune) and recording of "Hallelujah." As a producer, though, he refused to pick apart a song and question an artist's deeper meaning. The film doesn't, either, because it knows how much this song has come to mean to various people for an assortment of different reasons.

There is Cohen's original version from that 1984 album. In concerts, he started performing an altered version that removed verses with Biblical connections, much to the continued surprise and mild chagrin of Cohen's friend and longtime chronicler Larry "Ratso" Sloman. John Cale covered it for a tribute album, mixing verses from both of Cohen's versions into something entirely new.

It was that composition that caught the attention of Jeff Buckley, who gave it an entirely new life on his only album, before his tragic death in 1997 made his recording the "official" version in the minds of many. There's more, of course, including the songs appearance in Shrek and on the soundtrack, as well as footage of Cohen warmly embracing and ironically chiding just how popular the song has become without his further participation in that process.

Those are just the biographical details, if a song can be said to have a biography in the first place, obviously. Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song does dig a bit deeper than the chronology, though. Through interviews with the people involved in each major iteration of the song and musicians who have found inspiration in any one or all of those versions, the film gets at the heart of how "Hallelujah" has survived until now and will surely continue to endure for the foreseeable future.

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