In the mid-1980s, Leonard Cohen met Bob Dylan for coffee in a Paris cafe. In the course of the conversation, Dylan asked how long it had taken to write the song Hallelujah; Cohen, embarrassed, said that it had been about seven years. Then Cohen asked Dylan how long he had spent on one of his own compositions. “Fifteen minutes,” said his rival, without missing a beat.
Pundits now suspect that Bob Dylan was lying, keen to foster the image of himself as a freewheeling genius, a man who tossed off casual masterpieces as naturally as taking a leak. But Cohen was not being entirely honest either. In fact, he had toiled at Hallelujah for nearly a decade, filling his notebooks with 180 different verses and a rumoured 250 versions of each line. Even when it was recorded, the song was not quite done and dusted. One might even say it remains a work in progress today.
Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s steady, respectful documentary installs Hallelujah as its north star, its main point of reference, as it maps out Cohen’s history. We move from his wealthy upbringing in Montreal, through poetry and songwriting, drink and depression, to his valedictory last shows, playing Glastonbury and Coachella. Archive footage of the singer comes augmented with contributions from the likes of Judy Collins and Glen Hansard, plus Cohen’s longtime lover Dominique Issermann. The film tells the story of the artist, but it shows us the life of the song.
Inspired by gospel music and the charged speech of the synagogue, Hallelujah – with its heady blend of the sacred and the profane; the baffled king, the thwarted lover – first appeared on Cohen’s 1984 album Various Positions. Executives at Columbia hated the record so much they refused to put it out in the US, and the track almost bit the dust there and then. But it was later revived by John Cale and has since been covered by everyone from Jeff Buckley to Rufus Wainwright to Bono. It’s cropped up in Shrek; it’s a staple on American Idol and The Voice. In its many incarnations, it has now outlived its creator.
Cohen’s sombre mystique arguably lends itself to a more radical approach than the standard talking-heads format deployed here. Hallelujah is one for the fans, thorough and informative, like a set of cinematic liner notes, largely content to marvel at the majesty of its subject and the vibrant afterlife of his work. Still, if the film is finally unwilling or unable to let daylight in on magic, that’s probably for the best. Regina Spektor describes Hallelujah as a modern prayer. Issermann says it’s a symbolist poem. Cohen’s former rabbi goes further still, crediting its creation to the “bat kol” – the voice of God, using the songwriter as its vessel.
All of which may well be true; all of which leave its inimitable mysteries intact. Even Cohen, like the king, was baffled by Hallelujah. He didn’t want to explain it and suspected that he couldn’t if he tried. He said: “If I knew where songs came from, I would go there more often.”
• Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song screens at the Venice film festival and is released on 16 September in cinemas.
