(2005) "There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." On the stage of the Sydney Opera House in January 2005, music producer Hal Willner at the request of the Canadian consulate organized the Came So Far for Beauty Concert, bringing together more than a dozen singers plus backup musicians to perform a musical tribute to Leonard Cohen and his songs.

Director Lian Lunson filmed the concert, inserting interviews and archival footage for a cinematic portrait of the Canadian poet, internationally admired singer, and Zen monk.

The artists and the songs sung: Rufus Wainwright ("Chelsea Hotel No. 2," "Hallelujah"), Nick Cave ("I'm Your Man," "Suzanne"), Beth Orton ("Sisters of Mercy"), Martha Wainwright ("The Traitor" plus accompaniment on other selections), Kate and Anna McGarrigle ("Winter Lady" and "Everybody Knows" with Rufus and Martha Wainwright), Antony ("If It Be Your Will"), Teddy Thompson ("Tonight Will Be Fine"), Jarvis Cocker ("I Can't Forget"), Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen ("Anthem" plus backup on other numbers), the Handsome Family with Linda Thompson ("A Thousand Kisses Deep").

Neither regretting nor self-congratulating ("I can't forget that I don't remember what"), Leonard Cohen says of himself that he's not a nostalgic person. "You really don't command the enterprise" of being a writer: abandon your masterpiece, he says in song, to sink into the masterpiece.

His songs (lyrics of rigorous thought) - often responses to the beauty of situations, places, objects, and individuals - infused with the music of monasteries and the military (regimens and regiments), arose (as if talking with angels on a mountain top) - inspired by synagogues, Bible stories, and comic books - deal with themes of duty and destiny: "Your faith was strong/ But you needed proof."

Suzanne Vaillant ("And she brings you tea and oranges that come all the way from China"), the wife of a friend, inspired the words for "Suzanne"; Janis Joplin ("We were running for the money and the flesh"), he regrets revealing to a journalist, was the subject of "Chelsea Hotel No. 2."

For years he has studied under his spiritual friend and Zen master Roshi at the monastery on Mount Baldy. His lyrics occasionally express anti-war sentiment: "Oh, the wars they will be fought again. The dove is never free." His album Death of a Ladies' Man influenced punk rock bands.

Beginning and ending with Cohen singing a few his songs (not in the Sydney concert), including a version of "Tower of Song" with Bono and U2, this film complements the documentary Leonard Cohen Under Review (2006). Four additional performances from the Sydney concert are available as bonus features on the DVD.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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