Dayna Goldfine and Daniel Geller take an emotional journey through the life of Leonard Cohen

When Dayna Goldfine Y daniel geller decided that to tell the story of Leonard Cohen They would do it through one of their most emblematic songs, they could not imagine the whirlwind of emotions and revelations that they would give to the followers of the Canadian singer who died in December 2016. Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song It is not only a journey through the life of the singer-songwriter, but it is a generous journey through the emotions of creating a song that has transcended time.

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song takes us to know the details of a song with more than 180 verses written and worked over time, a process that did not end with the release of the song on the album Various Positions (1984) but continued to evolve, not only in Cohen’s voice but in various covers, being that of John Cale for the tribute album I’m Your Fan (1991) the most celebrated, so much so that Cohen himself would use it for his live performances.

“I always thought that there was something wrong with me and that I had to fix it through the search for spirituality,” says the musician in one of the passages of the film, giving clues about a life in which he tried to find answers or, better, to formulate the right questions to his permanent dissatisfaction that overflowed his Jewish origin, in a journey that led him from having something like a Japanese spiritual adviser on tour or seclusion for years in a Zen convent in the city of Los Angeles.


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The film is about Hallelujahan almost religious song that was then very slowly taken over by pop culture, first through Bob Dylan and then from its own author, who transformed it and made it his own, taking out the most religious verses to turn it into a secular work.

under the Morelia International Film Festivalthe creators of the documentary held a meeting with the press, where they explained that “during the investigation we realized that many people had already aroused the interest of other producers to talk about Hallelujah, but they had given up for three reasons: the first is that they were sure that Leonard Cohen was not going to give them an interview; second, they couldn’t get the rights to all the versions that had been made of the song, and third that it would be very boring to make a documentary about a song.

Faced with this scenario, Goldfine and Geller decided not to be intimidated and began by seeking the approval of Cohen himself, which they got. But with the death of the singer-songwriter, at age 82, in November 2016, the possibility of interviewing him was completely ruled out: “It made us reconceptualize the film,” said Goldfine. “We decided that since we couldn’t interview him, we were going to make a movie where we were going to travel with Leonard from the moment he told the world that he was a composer, as well as a poet,” he added.

Regarding the planning of the work, Dayna confirmed that “it took us a long time to do this and in some way it also has to do with the concept of time that Leonard Cohen himself had, because he accepted, although this did not always make him very happy or bothered him, even, that he was not able to write a song in 15 minutes like Bob Dylan, this classic alone took him seven years to do, so in some way it is appropriate that we have taken the same time, “he said.

Dayna Goldfine and Daniel Geller take an emotional journey through the life of Leonard Cohen

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Regarding the way of working, Goldfine noted that “we would have loved to interview Leonard, but we knew that would not be possible at 80 or 82, which is when we contacted him, which made us reconceptualize the whole film. If we had been able to interview him, the story would have been totally different, more focused on a reflecting man and the life he lived, however, what we decided was to travel with him from the moment he announced to the world that he was not only a poet but also a singer-songwriter and songwriter.”

Finally, it should be said that an obligatory question was to know his impression when the news of the death of Leonard Cohen was made public, Dayna took the floor to say; “(At that time) we were already friends with many people close to Leonard, it was the day before the elections in the United States and I was shopping in the supermarket, I thought that we were going to have a party celebrating the victory of Hillary Clinton and I received A text on the phone, I think it was from Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman saying, ‘There’s a terrible rumor that Leonard has passed away,’ was the first thing we heard, it wasn’t announced to the world until two days later. Even though no one was admitting that it had happened, we had this tremendous feeling inside that he had passed away,” Goldfine concluded.

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Dayna Goldfine and Daniel Geller take an emotional journey through the life of Leonard Cohen