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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love’ on Hulu, a Music Biography That’s Also a Chronicle of a Timeless Love Story

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Now streaming on Hulu and Amazon, Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love chronicles the storied love affair between singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen and his “muse,” Marianne Ihlen,…
Now streaming on Hulu and Amazon, Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love chronicles the storied love affair between singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen and his “muse,” Marianne Ihlen, best known as the subject of his timeless song “So Long, Marianne.” The movie is the latest music documentary by filmmaker Nick Broomfield, maker of sensationalist films about Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Biggie and Tupac, and Whitney Houston (and Heidi Fleiss and Sarah Palin and, and…). Broomfield is known for inserting himself into his films, but Words of Love gives him a legitimate reason for meta-commentary.
The Gist: In the 1960s, the sunsoaked Greek island of Hydra was a haven for artists. They wrote, sculpted, painted and sang, experimented with drugs, practiced free love. Years before he became a singer and songwriter of international renown, Leonard Cohen bought a house on Hydra so he could sit in the sun and write poetry and novels. In 1960, he met and fell in love with Marianne Ihlen, who would all but sit at his feet while he popped speed and dropped acid and hit his three-pages-a-day writing quota. He was moody, enigmatic, restless, often depressed. By the late ’60s, he transitioned from a shaky career at the typewriter to a much more successful one with guitar and microphone, which greatly tested the swinging door on their open relationship.
In the midst of their interpersonal tumult, Cohen wrote “So Long, Marianne.” In archived audio, Marianne says it was originally titled “Come On, Marianne” — as the state of their relationship changed, so did the tone of the song. She’d soon become the subject of a number performed nightly, with great anticipation by audiences.

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