wordcrush

So tonight I finally went and saw the Leonard Cohen film that I've been having opinions about for several months now. It's true, Len Len is a mystical force that casts shame on us all for our angry little lives. What's most shameful is that while I fumble all over myself and grasp for the vainest little shreds of recognition, the incomparable Len Len rasps a sigh, follows it up with a self-deprecating smirk, and sends critics and me into raptures. Coo, coo.

But this is not jealousy, lest ye mistake it. This is admiration for a person who, shimmering mediapersonathing aside, has been consistently dedicated to writing fine words. Cohen as poet deadset against Cohen as icon: that's the trick, or problem, or genius. The two blend together so well that they even fooled him for awhile. What saved him, I think, in the eighties, was his continuing faith that words can still speak to the world. If he hadn't believed that, he would have become Bono, whose idiotic commentary and inane fantasies of being The Postmodern Prophet haunt the film like Cohen's monstrously shiny dopplegänger.

It's time for a dirty, whorish confession: I actually like the movie About a Boy. Remember the part where Hugh Grant sings with his eyes closed? In I'm your Man the commentary is spliced in with performances of Cohen's music by a motley and brilliant cast of musicians playing the Len Len hits with their eyes closed. Whether or not I like them, the singers are singular in their performances. They are there in the first place because they forget that they are there. I don't remember Bono's eyes closing once in the film, he is so smitten with image and images. Len Len, unfooled, writes as if his eyes are closed.

The smirk and the damn fine suits are for the people who are still watching.

# posted by Lintropy @ 9:13 PM