Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019) - full transcript

This programme contains
some strong language

The woman who inspired the
songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen

to write some of his best-known work
has died.

So Long, Marianne,
and Bird On The Wire

were written decades ago
for Cohen's then-lover and muse,

Marianne Ihlen.

They split up, but when Marianne
grew ill

and near death with leukaemia,

her close friend,
Jan Christian Mollestad,

contacted Leonard Cohen.

Less than two hours later, a message
came back, which Jan read to her.



Dearest, Marianne.

I'm just a little bit behind
you,

close enough to take your hand.

I've never forgotten your love
and your beauty.

But you know that.
I don't have to say more.

Well, safe travels, old friend.

See you down the road.

Endless love and gratitude,
your Leonard.

CHEERING

I wrote this for Marianne.

I hope she's here.

Maybe she's here.

I hope she's here.

Marianne.



This song is called
So Long, Marianne.

And a girl called Marianne
that I know very well,

she came to me after I sang
for her first,

and she said - she's a Norwegian -

she said, "I'm certainly glad
that song wasn't written for me."

I said, "Oh, yeah?"

And she said,
"Yeah, cos, my name is 'Marianna'."

APPLAUSE

# Come over to the
window my little darling

# I'd like to try to read your palm

# I used to think
I was some kind of Gypsy boy

# Before I let you take me home... #

This is Marianne filmed on the
island of Hydra in the early '60s.

She said the song So Long, Marianne
was originally called

Come On, Marianne, and was not
her favourite song.

She said it was not originally
intended as a goodbye.

It came in actuality to foreshadow
the end of Marianne and Leonard's

relationship as lovers.

This is little Axel,

Marianne's seven-year-old son.

It looks like some kind
of a lobster.

It has all kinds of...

It was the '60s, and a time of free
love and open marriage, including

Leonard and Marianne's.

I was a rather lost 20-year-old,

visiting the island of Hydra,

when Marianne befriended me.

For a short while, I became one
of her lovers.

She encouraged me to follow my
dreams

and she played me Leonard's songs
under the Greek moon and stars.

Her smile and enthusiasm were one
of a kind,

and I felt completely intoxicated by
the beauty of their relationship.

LEONARD: I just left one day and I
won a prize for a book that I wrote.

They gave me some money,

and then I
got on a plane, and came eventually

to Greece and got on a boat.

And I just saw this island that was
so beautiful.

You know, I come from a country
where it's cold

and there's snow half the year.

And I saw this island, you know,
completely shining.

I just got off, met a girl there,
and I stayed.

There were just a few foreigners
there in those days.

And the Johnstons were central
figures.

They were older, they were doing
what we all want to do,

which was to write, and to make
a living out of writing.

And they were there and they were
very wonderful,

colourful, hospitable people.

And they helped me settle in.

They really helped me out.

That was first what made him an
outcast in Montreal.

It was the journey into the dark,

because nobody wanted to go there.

And I remember my mother writing me

some horrible things about him.

He knew the dark, he knew the
struggle, from moment to moment.

You were supposed to find a mate and
get married and live in Westmount.

They all stayed in Westmount.

So we, we left.

We had our own way of being.

We found our own lives,

but they turned out
to be synchronistic.

Can I have a sip?

I'll have to even all of them.

LEONARD: The days were very, very
orderly.

We'd get up early, and have
breakfast,

and I'd go to work, and a sandwich
would be brought to me.

I think I was on speed,
too, so I wasn't eating very much.

And that's the day, we'd proceed
like that.

I had a quota, I think
it was three pages a day.

She was beautiful, but she didn't
really enjoy being beautiful

before she met Leonard,
and he made her love living.

She felt that not only did Leonard
see her,

but he really loved her, and he
really made her feel beautiful.

I think if you should really
understand Marianne

you have to understand her first
husband, Axel.

Axel could get so angry.

So he would throw out
the furniture from the window

and out in the street.

I don't think he ever hit her.

But he was violent.

Leonard was the one who came
into Marianne's life,

who had watched the
relationship breaking down.

Leonard saved her life.

And he went into a kind of role
as a kind of helping hand.

He helped with little Axel,

and he helped her with talking
and practical things.

He was the father
in the real sense.

And little Axel still is talking
about Leonard

as a very good force.

He's a very smart kid.

He was very quiet, maybe
a bit shy even.

LEONARD: Axel and I would just, we
would roam the hills.

We would find fossils and...

I lived there from the time
that I was three months old.

We used to run around
barefoot.

That slightly powdery feeling of the
dried sea water on the stones.

Every part of it is beautiful,

in every season,

at any time of the day or night.

The freshly baked bread
and things like that.

I mean, I've never experienced
those things anywhere else.

Even the air has a kind of, you can sort
of feel the air, especially in the evening.

It's feels, like, sort of silky,

wrapped in something
silky and velvety.

There was so much freedom there

that people just went too far with
it.

So, there was always that danger
hanging over people.

I was mesmerised by the island's
beauty,

and had never before met

so many golden sun-kissed people of
either sex

having so much fun together.

It felt like anything was possible.

Marianne gave me my first acid trip,

which she said had come from a
friend of Leonard's in London,

called Malcolm, and she took these
pictures of me the morning after.

I had no intention of leaving,

but then one of Marianne's other
lovers

unexpectedly showed up on the
island,

and I found myself hastily boarding
the next boat back to Athens.

My enthusiasm for Hydra, however,
remained undiminished.

I suggested to Rick, my best
friend from school,

that he go there as a break from a
hectic career as a journalist.

Rick intended to go for two weeks,
but ended up staying for 14 years.

I came to Hydra, which
you recommended,

and suddenly had a
enormous sense of relief,

because it was a combination,
I think,

of beauty, the beauty of the place,
the simplicity of the place,

and the genuineness
of the environment.

It was just a small group of artists

who were either refugees of some
kind or another.

And you could live so cheaply,
then.

Leonard didn't have much money
back then,

and there was an unwritten rule,
certainly back when I was first

on Hydra, that if you saw someone
like Leonard at a table,

you didn't assume you could go
and sit with them.

They were there to be alone,
and remain alone,

and they were doing their writing

A large part of my life
was escaping.

Whatever it was,
even if the situation looked good,

I had to escape,
because it didn't look good to me.

So, it was a selfish life and,

but it didn't seem so at the time,

it just seemed a matter of survival.

You know, I guess it gets uprooted.

People close to me suffered
because I was always leaving.

I was always trying to get away.

I was very much encouraged by a
friend of mine

by the name of Irving Layton,

influenced by his manner.

After he asked me what I'm doing,

he'd always say, "Leonard, are you
sure you're doing the wrong thing?"

And that really struck home,
that really sounded right.

And Cohen's concern is my
renunciation of the Canadian public.

Is this true, or are do you have
some other concern, Mr Cohen,

that you'd like to get off your
chest right now?

When I get up in the morning,

my real concern is to discover
whether or not

I'm in a state of grace.

What do you think
Leonard loved so much about Irving?

He loved his intellect,

he loved his imagination,

and he felt that Irving was the real
thing, in terms of poetry.

And the very first time I saw
Leonard,

Irving said, "I'm going to ask this
man to come around, this boy man."

I think he was 19, 20.

And I said, "Who is he?"

And he said, "He's the real thing."

They each thought of each other
as the real thing.

They also had a very strong
Jewish connection.

That was a very strong thing
in Irving's life,

a very strong
thing in Leonard's life.

Leonard was an aristocratic Jew.

Leonard came from a wealthy
family,

very well-rooted
in Canadian culture.

He came from an educated family,
highly educated family.

I never knew Leonard's father,
of course,

who died when Leonard was young,

but his mother, Masha, was as mad
as a hatter.

Really mad.

She had a thing about Irving.

I wouldn't be at all surprised...

Leonard and I would laugh
about it,

whether Irving and Masha

ever actually went to bed together.

Irving went
to bed with everybody.

Why not Leonard's mother?

I mean, and she was
very attracted to Irving.

And Irving might...

She was very beautiful, but mad.

I think really great writers have to
have mad, Oedipally-mad mothers.

And if that's the case,
then that's what he had.

I mean, I know that a lot of my
love of music comes from my mother,

who had a lovely voice.

She was Russian, and she sang songs
around the house,

and I know that those changes,

those melodies touched me very much

and that's certainly an influence.

And she would sing with us.

I'd take my guitar to a restaurant
with my friends,

and my mother would come in and we'd
often sang all night.

We're winning! We're winning!

We're winning the eternal battle,
we're keeping the party going.

# We're keeping the party going. #

He loved women.

No question about it.

But he needed to be his own person,
in his own way.

So he could love women
from a distance

and love them when they came
through.

He could make
women feel good about themselves.

And that's how he loved them.

That's how he loved them.

But he couldn't give himself
to them,

because he couldn't
give himself away.

I was not satisfied with my
life at all.

I didn't know what to do.

I was the only one who didn't paint,
write, sculpt.

So everybody was artists.

Lots of people came off
the boat to Hydra.

Jacqueline Kennedy was there,

Princess Margaret was there.

So what could I say?

So, finally, I would say,
"I am an artist.

"Life is an art.

"I'm living."

Not very original.

I was looking at myself and saying,

"Everything is wrong with me", you
know?

So, it's a pity.

Marianne had been the one to support
Leonard

through the nightmare of writing his
last novel,

Beautiful Losers, on Hydra.

I wrote a lot of books there,
and a lot of songs.

I published
the novel, Beautiful Losers,

but I really couldn't pay the rent.

Oh, yeah. He went quite crazy.

I mean, you'd have to be crazy
to write Beautiful Losers,

it's like a hallucinogenic
madness.

He used to stay out there
under that hot Greek sun,

and Marianne would make him little
baskets of food and water,

and drop them over to him.

I mean, he wrote that book in a
fever.

So he would never have been able

to do that anywhere else
except that island.

Leonard had always used acid.

It just gave him that extra whoosh.

It was just never just
taking it to get out of oneself.

It was very much to do with part
of the spiritual search.

It allowed him to go
into his madness, I think,

which he probably couldn't have done
anywhere else.

It allowed him to sit on his
terrace in the sun,

take acid and speed.

Marianne, I mean, she used to say,
I mean, you know she was there

to sort of, not pick up the pieces,

but to sort of hold the man
that had driven himself

to the Beautiful Losers, and writing
those extraordinary pages,

day after day, in the sun,

lunatic that he was.

To find something that really
addresses my attention,

I have to do a lot
of endless versions.

Anything I can bring to it,
I try everything.

Try to ignore it, try to address it,
try to get high.

Try to get intoxicated, try to
get sober, you know?

And all the versions of myself
that I can summon

are summoned to participate
in this...this word force.

So, uh, I try...I try everything.
I'll do anything.

But listen to what some of the
critics said about his latest book...

After I finished Beautiful Losers,

I thought that I would
go into music.

I wasn't really making a living
as a writer.

It was very hard to support
and feed the hungry mouths

that I was obliged to do.

So I came back to America,

and I didn't know what had been
happening in New York

in...in folk music. I was
completely unaware

of people like Phil Ochs or Dylan
or Joan Baez.

Leonard found me. And he came
to my apartment,

and he came in, and we had
some coffee.

And I said, "So?" and he said,
"Well, I can't sing,

"and I can't play the guitar,

"and I don't know if this
is a song."

And then he played me...

# Suzanne takes you down to her
place by the river... #

So I said, "Leonard, that is
the song!

"That's a song and I have to
record that immediately."

So, he and I... Of course,
I recorded it right away.

We became friends.

He was quite clear that he never,
ever wanted to sing in public.

So, about a year went by and Suzanne
was a big song by then.

And I was doing a big fundraiser
in New York

and I said, "You have to
come with me.

"I want to put you on stage and I
want you to sing Suzanne.

"Everybody is dying to hear
you sing this song."

He said, "I can't sing. I have
a horrible voice."

I said, "You don't have
a horrible voice."

So he came out and he stood
in the middle there

and began singing the song.

And I knew that he was shaking
like a leaf

because I had seen him, seen his
hands on the guitar.

In the middle of Suzanne, he broke
down and began to sob...

..and walked off the stage.

He was dying of fear.

He was having what we know as
a great massive attack

of...of stage fright.

So he came off the stage and I said,
"Leonard, this just will not do.

"You have to go back. I'll go
back with you.

"And we can do the song together."

He said, finally, he said, "OK."

So, meantime, the whole audience
is continuing to clap

and scream and carry on because
they've gotten a taste.

They could hear him sing. They knew.

So we went out together,
he finished the song

and, by the time we finished,
he was a convert.

A total convert to his own
magical impression.

I would like to introduce to you
Mr Leonard Cohen.

# Suzanne takes you down

# To her place near the river

# You can hear the boats go by

# You can spend the night beside her

# And you know she's half-crazy

# But that's why you wanna
to be there

# And she feeds you tea and oranges

# That come all the way
from China... #

It was one of the most important
moments of his life and mine.

And of course, then he was
off to the races.

Columbia signed him up and was
his label forever.

I remember her arriving
at the airport.

She had two heavy valises
in each hand.

She couldn't wave to me because she
couldn't lift the suitcases up

and she didn't want to drop them,
she was moving.

So she waved to me with her foot.

And I remember that very,
very clearly.

Yeah, boy, that was a mistake.

You know, and said famously,

you know, the famous thing,
"I want my woman!"

I mean, that was Leonard.

"I want my woman and my child
to come to Montreal."

And that was this wonderful thing.

And, of course, the minute he
said it, he didn't...

He wouldn't have... He didn't
need it any more!

He needed to say it.

And Marianne, who was deeply
in love with him,

did come and brought Little Axel,

we always used to call him
Little Axel,

and, um, it was a disaster.

It was very unhappy.

A very unhappy time. Axel would
come and stay with us.

He used to take a pencil
and pencil his name

over every wall in our apartment.

And you were, "Axel. Axel. Axel!"

That was a very unhappy time.

Poets do not make great
husbands...do they?

Do you know of a poet who's
ever made

an absolutely splendid husband?

Or a film-maker or an artist?

No. You can't own them.

You can't even own a bit of them.

They're...they're just
elusive creatures...

..who are married to their...

..to their muse.

That sounds so pretentious to
say that, but it's true.

But the irony is, a man like that...

..is a man who other... That every
woman wants to have.

And can't have.

Marianne came up to me

and she said, "We were very happy
living in Hydra.

"And we were walking on the beach,
and we were swimming in the nude

"and drinking a lot of retsina
and we were very happy.

"And then one day he came to me

and he said, 'Marianne,
I'm going to New York

"'to play my songs for
Judy Collins.'

"And you recorded all of his songs,

"and I just wanted to tell you
that you ruined my life."

Certainly, their dream life
in Hydra

had a big interruption,
which was that

Leonard discovered himself
as a singer.

I took this picture of Marianne
in the autumn of 1968,

when she came to the UK
and contacted me.

She'd come to bring Little Axel to
boarding school

and needed a lift.

We drove down to Suffolk
to Summerhill,

the A S Neill school, where children
didn't have to attend class

if they didn't want to.

Axel was eight and I remember how
upset he was when we drove away.

Axel would write to Marianne
nearly every day.

Marianne was in tears, too,

but believed it was the best
thing for him

because she was always travelling.

Marianne came and stayed
for a while

in my less-than-chic squat
in Kentish Town,

where she took this photo.

She introduced me to the world
of protest movements

and artists using their art to
achieve incredible things.

She was close to Julie Felix,
the singer, an old friend

of hers and Leonard's. And, working
with Julie as her muse,

encouraging her to write her own
songs for the very first time.

Julie had originally met
Leonard on Hydra

before either of them were singers.

Well, I'm very happy and proud to
have him here on the show

and introduce him to
the English public.

Here is the writer, the poet,
the songwriter.

He's a friend, but he says he's
a stranger in this song.

Ladies and gentlemen, Leonard Cohen.

APPLAUSE

MUSIC: The Stranger Song

# It's true that all
the men you knew

# Were dealers who said they were
through with dealing

# Every time you gave them shelter

# I know that kind of man

# It's hard to hold the hand
of anyone

# Who's reaching for the sky... #

Leonard was always searching,
and this feeling

of never belonging anywhere,
and even in a relationship,

you know, eventually with
Marianne, I think that was

the longest relationship...

But after that, he went from
relationship to relationship.

And at the end of the song, there
was just a tear in his eye.

He was an emotional man.

APPLAUSE

Well, at that time, they were
already having a few problems.

Marianne and I hung out together
for quite a while

and we became very close and we went
on a couple of trips together.

And she was the muse and said,
you know, "Why don't you write?"

And the first song I wrote
was Windy Morning,

which is a song that she kind
of...guided me through.

She was a great muse, wasn't she?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And I think...I think Leonard
honoured that, you know?

He said that she was, you know,
when...when, um...

..when he was speaking of her.

Well, she was so encouraging.

Yeah. And she was so nurturing,
you know? It's uh...

Yeah, it's...it's that, you know,
the woman power,

the...the ability to nurture
and love and...

..and encourage, you know?

It's something the world needs.
That's why I think it's good

that we're getting to
women's time, finally,

with all the Time's Up,

and Leonard was a great, uh...

..feminist, you know. He really...

He said to me once, cos I was
talking about something,

He said, "I can't wait till
women take over."

So that was...that was kind
of nice to hear from him.

Leonard's imagery came
from the poets,

from Shakespeare, from Keats,
from Marlowe.

So I found certain lines
in his guitar playing

that I could enrich.

And I decided not to do it
with instruments,

but to do it with female voices,
since so much of his writing

was about his relationships
with women.

There was a very female presence
in all of his songs,

even though he was a man.

So, my girlfriend at the time had
a very nice, pure soprano voice,

and so I started, you know,
fooling around,

asking her, "Sing this, sing this,
you know, over Leonard's song.

"What do you think?" And, uh...

..some of it sounded really great.

You can't sort of imitate
it, slightly?

HE CHUCKLES

I'm not a singer. I don't know.
She was singing...

# So long, Marianne... #

She added a little...
SINGS HIGH NOTE

..on the top.

# It's time that we began to laugh

# And cry

# And laugh

# And cry

# About it all again. #

So, she sort of aped what he was
doing, but it gave it

a little harder... Put a little
harder edge on it, you know?

# So long, Marianne

# It's time that we began

# To laugh

# To cry

# And laugh and cry and laugh

# Oh, oh, oh

# So long, Marianne... #

The very first time I met
Leonard Cohen,

he opened the door and he's
absolutely naked as a jaybird.

Right? So, me coming out of
where I come out of,

I go, "This is pretty damn weird."
You know? "This is..."

Later, of course, throughout
the time I spent with Leonard,

the years that we worked together...

When I look back on all that and if
I had have been involved enough

at that moment, it wouldn't have
been weird to me at all.

All the time I knew Leonard,

he was very, very conscious
of his body.

Leonard used to say that,
"When we're on tour

"and you get... We're at the hotel,
take all your clothes off.

"You're going to be passing by these
things called mirrors, right?

"And when you pass by a mirror,
you're going to notice

"that little... 'Hey, I need to be
doing a few more sit-ups.'"

Leonard swam, like, all the time.

Any hotel we were in,

you would find, if they had...if
they had a pool,

he was in it, and he would get up
early in the morning

so he didn't have to run
into anybody.

He'd be down there at five o'clock
in the morning,

and he'd be doing laps.

And if they would let him swim
nude, he would swim nude.

I don't know why. That was
just him.

Didn't you write a song with him?

I did, yeah. I wrote
Chelsea Hotel with him.

We boarded an airplane in La Guardia
and me and Leonard sat there

and worked on this song.

I had no idea who he was
talking to

in his writing, at the time.

It came out later that it was
about Janis Joplin.

And, you know, like the...
It's, like...

# I remember you well at
the Chelsea Hotel

# Talking so brave and so sweet

# Giving me head on the unmade bed

# While the limousines wait
in the street... #

That's all still there.

Nobody knows that the second
verse was...

# I remember you well at
the Chelsea Hotel

# In the winter of 1967

# My friends of that year

# They were all turning queer

# And me, I was just getting even. #

# I remember you well in
the Chelsea Hotel.

# You were talking so brave
and so sweet

# Giving me head

# On an unmade bed

# While the limousines

# Wait in the street. #

At that time, Leonard had some
experiences with Janis Joplin.

All these things.

And Marianne was living separately
in her apartment,

with Little Axel. That must've
been, uh...

..very strange.

But she was still the muse.

And the interesting thing is that...

..she has read for me
the telegrams...

..from Leonard.

First, the telegrams to...

.."Marianne Cohen".

Was just like they have
been married!

Telegrams going to Hydra and then
to London and then to New York.

First, it's in the period when they
are together as a couple.

But the beautiful thing is when...

..they're not a couple any more,
he's still sending money.

He's still asking how Axel...

..is doing.

And so he continues to send
his small...

..er...

..love messages.

Even if they're not together.

Leonard said he was suffering
from depression

that he fought for so many years.

So Leonard decided... He thought,
well, it'd be a nice thing

for us to do, is that we blow
in...say, we blew into London

to play the Royal Albert Hall.

"Well, we got three or four days
here, why don't we,

"one evening, go out and play at
a mental institution?"

OK. So, of course, that went over
like a fart in a diver's helmet

with me because I wasn't
about to go out to any...

I was not going. No way.

He said, you know,
"Just go one time."

He said, "If you go one time
and don't want to play

"any more of these, then you
don't have to do it, right?"

So I said, "OK." So I went...

Well, I'm going to tell you this.

By the time that night was over...

..you couldn't drive me away
from that idea.

And we ended up playing
a lot of them.

He had a grandfather
or something like that

that I think died in one
of those institutions.

There are a number of reasons
why I played in the hospitals.

You know, when you play for somebody
who has really been defeated...

..and it was my feeling that
the elements of his defeat

corresponded with certain elements
that produced my song

and that there would be an empathy.

I mean, I feel that I also have
an empathy with this experience.

LAUGHTER

# I loved you in the morning

# Our kisses deep and warm

# Your hair upon the pillow

# Like a sleepy golden storm

# Yes, many loved before us... #

That was a moment in my life
that I would never forget.

This guy, he stands up
and starts screaming.

You know, "Hey, shut it down.
Stop. Shut it..."

Well, we, you know...

..being musicians
and having played a million shows,

we steam right on, right.

We're not going to let it...
Well, no, this guy shut it down.

He shut it down.

And then Leonard finally said,
"OK, you talk", right.

So this guy said, "Look..."

He said, "You come in here...

"..and you've got all these
shiny guitars

"and you get all...and you've
got the pretty girls there

"singing background stuff
and everything."

He said, "I want to know,
what do you think about me?

"That's what I want to know about.

"I want to know what you
think about me."

You could hear a pin drop
in that place.

And Leonard just walked past
me and Charlie,

walked down the stairs,
walked right out in the crowd

and just hugged him
like you wouldn't believe.

He almost broke his ribs,
he hugged him that hard.

..You don't see any more? Pardon?
Not somebody?

When we go to Geneva.
No, I mean now.

Now? No. No, tonight.

Would you like to listen? Yes.

I don't have any plans.
You don't have any place?

No, I don't have any place here.
Do you have somewhere for me?

Yes, a lot.

OK.

It's hard to come on to a girl
in front of the camera. What?

I was obsessed by, erm...

..gaining women's favours, at
a certain point in my life,

and way beyond any reasonable...

..erm...

..activity.

It became the most important
thing in my life

and it led me into
very obsessive behaviour

and some very interesting things,

and probably most of the things
I learned about myself

and about other people

were gained from this
period of obsessive...

..this blue movie
that I threw myself into.

But we know that blue movies
are not romantic.

It was a show with more women
than men.

It was like, you look out there
and there were some couples

and it was mostly just women.

They read his poetry, right,

and then they see him sing
these songs

and they're all just down there
crying and all,

but watching him.

There was no problem with women.

You know, I'll tell you
a funny story.

One day, I'm down in the lobby
of the Mayfair Hotel

and he comes walking in from the cab
with this really nice-looking woman

and they disappear.

Come down a couple of hours later

and they're having drinks
in the lobby.

This bar there.

And she leaves,
and then he makes a phone call.

About a half hour later, he comes
back with a different woman

and they go up - they're gone.

This is one afternoon.

Hello. How are you?

He had to have a woman all the time.

This guy travelled the world.

He knew women and people
in Paris and London

and all those places, right.

He'd go, let me just call
so and so.

Yeah, yeah.
There was no problem there.

In fact, everybody was doing
pretty good.

Even me.

Oh, yeah.

CHEERING

I had a great appetite
for the company of women

and for the sexual expression
of friendship

and I was very fortunate
because it was the '60s.

And that possibility
was very, very present

and, for a tiny moment
in social history,

there was a tremendous cooperation
between men and women

about that particular item.

And so I was very lucky that
my appetite coincided

with this very rare...

What? Religious? Social?
I don't know what you'd call it.

Some kind of phenomenon

that allowed men and women,
boys and girls, we were,

to come together in that kind
of union that satisfied

both the appetites.

CHEERING

# Like a bird

# On the wire

# Like a drunk in some
old midnight choir

# I have tried

# In my way

# To be free... #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I felt much more that Bird On The
Wire had something to do with me

because I was there.

When you see it in the light
of how it began...

..it was when the new electricity
came to Hydra.

I gave him the guitar,
we looked out of the window,

we saw the birds
landing on the wires

and he had not been able to
create or write or sing

or do anything for weeks,

and he was in a very, very,
deep, deep depression.

And it also was a period
in my life where I had to...

..make a decision
that was pretty hard.

And that was following...

..my intuition...

..and decide that Leonard and I
was not going to have

any children together.

SHE SOBS

Marianne came and visited me
in Cardiff,

where I was a student
living down by the docks.

I was concerned she might get bored.

But Marianne was naturally
interested in everyone.

She regarded being receptive and
open as the highest of qualities.

Marianne made friends with
all the kids in the street,

who followed her around all day,
and she encouraged me

to make my very first film
on slum clearance

as the whole community was
being torn down.

Marianne liked to throw the I Ching
every day and get stoned.

She talked about Leonard a lot.

His favourite salt beef sandwich
shop in Piccadilly.

His spiritual search, even dabbling
in Scientology and Est.

Marianne, too, was on her own
spiritual search,

and Leonard was in many ways
her teacher.

One day,
she asked me to drive her to Bath.

She said she was pregnant
with Leonard's child.

I think she was preg...
..or she WAS pregnant to Cohen,

but she knew that Leonard
didn't want children,

and she had abortions,
even though she would have...

She, if anyone should have should
have had Leonard's children,

she deserved to have them.

But she didn't, for Leonard's sake.

But, you know, she wanted
what I wanted.

She wanted...

..to...

..she wanted to be with him,

and you cannot be with Leonard...

..in that sense,

although you could say that I'd
rather have one day or one night

with Leonard than a lifetime
with somebody else,

that would be easy to say.

But it's not...

..it's not so easy.

You know, I could have said
that with Irving, just to be...

I was with Irving for over 20 years.

Whatever the ups and downs,
how wonderful it was, and it WAS,

but most of that time was anguish,
you can't...

Anguish?

Well, you know,
it was the days of open marriage,

whatever the hell that was,

and I don't think it EVER was
successful with anybody.

One of the partners was always
jealous, and angry,

and hurt and confused.

I don't know any child who came out
not damaged by that period of time.

We just wanted to do it all,
take drugs, and fuck around,

and do whatever we...

And the children were just...

They came along on the ride.

They didn't want to come along
on that ride.

There are a lot of us who grew
up very quickly on the island.

There's also a lot of acid
on the island,

like, people were actually
dropping acid into people's drinks,

and I remember hearing reports
of people having donkeys,

they were riding donkeys
that, like, started tripping

and getting into all kinds
of trouble and accidents, right...

They gave acid to the donkeys?
Yeah, as well as to people.

I got, erm, someone put acid in one
of my drinks, when I was about 13,

and I had no idea
what was happening.

Also, a lot of casualties happened.

I think Marianne,
and a lot of other women,

were not as nurturing
to their children, perhaps,

or as present with them
as they could have been.

Axel was really
a casualty of that.

Marianne was going from one love
to another, to another,

and often he wasn't with her,
you know,

so who was he with?

And Leonard, you know,
he wasn't Leonard's kid.

He started wearing long, you know,
flowing Moroccan robes,

and he was silent for years,

and then later
he became institutionalised.

But I've always felt very sad
that he's been, you know,

institutionalised for most of
his adult life.

Those who could work with Hydra
did really well,

and there weren't many,
quite frankly.

I saw so many artists who came

and either just found
their creativity

just wasn't strong enough
to sustain them,

or the booze, the sex, the beauty
of the landscape was all too much,

and they just gave up,

erm, but Leonard was one of those
who, who, somehow,

the whole environment, I think,

sort of coalesced,
and worked for him,

and he worked with it.

Ha! Still...

# I got a home in glory land

# That outshines the sun

# I got a home in glory land

# That outshines the sun

# I got a home in glory land

# That outshines the sun

# O, do, Lord, O, do, Lord... #

He was a real success story.

He really was.

He wasn't damaged by that place,
I think, at all.

Many other people seemed to come
away from that place

sort of irreparably...

..damaged,
and it was terrible on marriages.

Very few marriages lasted that
place, including my parents'.

I remember Marianne telling me
of the tragedy of the Johnstons,

the family that Leonard had
originally stayed with in 1960,

who left the island
after nine years.

This family of such amazing
talent and promise,

and they just kind of
all fell to bits

shortly after leaving the island.

It's my birthday today,
and this is a wonderful homecoming,

and that was a photograph, a family
one, taken on my birthday last year,

on the island.

THE CHILDREN SPEAK GREEK

They always speak Greek
among themselves.

I think it comes more naturally
to them,

and they've done all their schooling
in Greek, ten years.

When they left, almost penniless,

she killed herself, like,
a couple of years later.

He died a year after that,
of tuberculosis,

probably greatly compounded by
cigarettes and alcohol.

And then the children that had,
that seemed so, you know,

glorious and beautiful and bright
and wonderful on the island,

they, one by one, died early,
of alcoholism, suicide, drugs.

It's only one that's alive.

Numerous other children from
families that had lived on Hydra

have had a hard time
re-entering the real world.

I think there is a depression
that sets in

if you've spent any time there.

I've certainly felt it.

There's not a day that goes by
that I don't wake up

and wish that I were there,
you know?

Literally.

I never wanted to be any other
place in the world, you know?

It's just the place.

It's just the place,
you know, er, you...

It gets in your bones.

I don't know how to describe it,
but it's just the place.

Just stepping off the boat,
every time,

it's coming home.

CHEERING

ELECTRICAL FIZZING

That was a very weird, weird night.

There were 660,000 people out there.

It was a disturbing night.

They even caught the stage on fire,

had to put the stage out
before we went on.

Maybe we ought to get out of here,
you know,

somebody's going to get hurt!

Leonard embraced it.

He got into it.

like I was saying before,
you either get him or you don't.

He got it.

Well, I was on Mandrax at the time.

they used to call me
Captain Mandrax.

I think it had...
It was like a Quaalude,

right, I was relaxed
beyond any reasonable state.

I hope she's here, Marianne.

I hope she's here. Maybe she's here.

I hope she's here.

Marianne.

# An old woman gave us shelter

# Kept us hidden in the garret

# Then the soldiers came... #

Marianne was one woman

that didn't seem to me
all starstruck over Leonard.

Kind of held her own,
put it that way, you know?

She would join us, sometimes,
for a week at a time,

or maybe ten days at a time,
and be gone.

There was other ladies
that Leonard had on tour,

but when Marianne was in town,
he was out of the picture.

She carried with her
a different feel

than any woman that
I ever saw around Leonard.

CHEERING

There was a need for such
a connection between Leonard

and his audience that would actually
have blown your mind.

One night, he had so many people
come up on stage with him

that it was like this big love-in

right in the middle of our concert.

Like a pile of people making love
without taking their clothes off,

but if we could have stuck around
a while longer,

who knows what would have happened.

Can you imagine,
we're playing Amsterdam,

and he invites the entire audience

to come home with us to his hotel.

And they did it.

We took a lot of acid
on those trips, a lot.

Leonard had a buddy in London

and he had a thing
called Desert Dust,

and if you took a needle,

and touch it to your tongue,

and the tiniest little speck that
you could pick up with that needle

on your tongue,

gone, I mean gone, for 14 hours,

with no re-entry.

None.

One time, we took that, that damn
Desert Dust 23 nights in a row,

playing the Royal Albert Hall,
and the Vienna Opera House,

and all the fine places on the...

We were, I mean, I,
I've got to tell you,

there's no way I could, I could ever
even survive one of those nights,

at this point.

Got to see my text here.

Hey!

Knew I could count on you, baby!

That's hot.

This is the way
it's got to be done.

Think that stuff still works?
I don't know.

I'll be in serious trouble
if it works or if it doesn't work!

Leonard used to say,
"You have to be in the zone."

Well, we stayed in the zone.

A lot of people think, like, well,

if you burn it down really strong
tonight,

tomorrow morning, you've got
that hangover, and all that...

Uh-uh. We stayed in the zone.

Day after day after day.

There was only one night -

we were playing in Jerusalem -

when he wasn't getting them.

Now, look,
if it doesn't get any better,

er, we'll just end the concert
and I'll refund your money.

Some nights,
one is raised off the ground,

and some nights,
you just can't get off the ground,

and there's no point lying about it.

And tonight we just haven't been
getting off the ground.

So, anyway, we're backstage,

and we're going,
"Well, what's going to happen?",

and Marty Machat, his manager,
is trying to talk to him,

and Leonard's just zinging, right?

I knew that,

and, er...
How do you mean, "zinging"?

I mean, like, on LSD.

Like, his eyes are blacked
out, like they get, right?

And, er,

he's just feeling...

And so, all of a sudden,
he says to me, he goes,

"Billy, can you get me a razor?"

I said, "Leonard, what are you
going to do, cut your throat?"

And he said,

"No. I think if I shave,
I might be able to go back out."

And you got,
this is the last concert.

This is something you have to do
and then, bang...

Oh, I know what I have to do,
I have to shave.

What a life!

What a life!

Oh, this is wonderful.

Why didn't you tell me about this?

So that's what he did,
he shaved, dry shaved, almost.

Ha! Just some water,
and then he went back out there

with a big rash on his face
and finished the show.

You've got to try it, man,
it's wonderful!

Oh, yeah.

Amazing.

Oh, this is really great.

# I saw Jesus on the cross

# On a hill called Calvary

# Do you hate mankind

# For what they've done to you?

# He said talk of love not hate... #

Everybody was shooting
from the hip, right?

Not welded to any, any thing.

The idea was that tonight
we will play this song...

..better than we did last night.

And tomorrow night we're going to
play it better than we did tonight.

# Sometimes happy,
sometimes blue... #

There was only one night,
one night that I felt like

that I let things get away from me.

And I actually went for
this beautiful chord,

it was a F# minor 7th in...I think
in the song called Suzanne.

And as I went for that chord,
I actually landed on my face

on the ground...on the
stage right there,

and Leonard turned around
and looked at me like,

"OK. We need to now start
backing off the Mandrax, right?"

Marianne and I kept in touch
during the '70s and '80s

with the occasional postcard
and letter.

I was delighted when she suggested
we might work together

and we talked about various ideas.

Marianne was increasingly
concerned about Axel.

He'd been on a trip to India
and taken too many drugs.

She was upset with Little Axel's
father, who had encouraged him.

Axel was now living in an
institution in Oslo,

and Marianne was spending
more and more time with him.

Marianne had still been following
Leonard on his travels,

and very infrequently they still
shared the house together on Hydra.

Apparently, Leonard was now living
part of the year in Montreal

with a woman called Suzanne.

I've read three of his biographies
and I've always been surprised

that they sort of partition
it as, like,

here was Marianne and then
that was over,

and then he took up
with Suzanne, but in fact,

there was a considerable
overlap of time,

where he supported both families.

He said that when he was with her
and Axel in that house on Hydra,

he felt that's where he belonged.

But when he was with Suzanne
and the baby in Montreal,

he felt that's where he belonged.

And so he was confused.

Suzanne, she was much
more visceral, in a way.

And 14 years younger than him.

So I guess there's a whole bunch

of different things that
conspired to...

..to make it come to an end.

You needed somebody like Suzanne,
who was, well, the word ruthless

is just the word that comes to mind.

And she did what she wanted to do to
bind Leonard to her by any means...

To use the Black Panther thing,
by any means necessary.

And boy, did she do...

And she knew exactly what to do
and when to do it.

It was like falling into a spider's
web and there was something...

There's always something terribly
fascinating about the spider.

Very fascinating.

And I think Leonard
just fell into that...

..because it was so fascinating.

I don't even know what drove
that whole thing.

But he knew, he knew he was....

As Irving, as Irving would say,
"Make sure you do the wrong thing."

Boy, did he make sure he did
the wrong thing with Suzanne.

settling down and having a home
and a family and all that stuff.

Leonard always had that feeling
that he was after something

that he couldn't
get his hands around.

The only thing about it is
that I don't know what he...

I don't think he knew what he was
chasing, you know.

I don't think he...
I don't think he really knew.

And that made it be probably
a darker...

You know, he lived in a...

He lived in darkness.

He disappeared for six weeks,
sometimes.

I wouldn't know how to find him
or nothing. Nobody would, you know.

And it was a deep, deep depression.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

When we toured Europe,
when we toured Germany,

I've never seen so many
blondes in one audience.

He was the poet for the
quasi-depressed women of his era.

People who were going through
issues, they'd come up sobbing,

"You saved my life.

"I was in such a dark place
and your darkness led me out of it."

Thank you so much.

He had his thing that he projected.

He had his black suit.

He had his look of seriousness
and you never saw his humour.

He was a really funny guy.

But when he was on stage,
it was dark and it was lonely.

And it was desperate.

..Those who would sacrifice...

..one generation on behalf
of another.

# Well, the door it opened slowly

# My father he came in

# I was nine years old

# And he stood so tall above me

# And his blue eyes
they were shining

# And his voice was very cold... #

I wanted to frame each of
the songs like...

..a little vignette.

They all had these places of mind,
so I was giving them...

Because we were using unusual
instruments,

which was a couple of trombones
to take it somewhere

or very icy strings.

And dark shimmering things to make
it these little, like little movies.

And we came back and we were ready
to do another couple of weeks

in the studio and he said,

"I'm going to go to
Hydra for a little bit,

and as soon as I get
back, we'll finish it."

And I didn't hear from him for...

..seven years.

It turns out, Marty Machat, who was
Leonard's manager, also managed

Phil Spector, and he had made
a deal for Phil

with Warner Brothers that got them
both a huge advance.

Really huge advance for the '70s,
it was unheard of.

So what had happened was Marty
called up Leonard and said,

"Forget the record with John,
we'll put that on the back burner.

"We want you to do a
record with Phil Spector.

"He's really famous so
it'll make you a hit."

And of course, he made
Death Of A Ladies' Man.

Which, you know,
is not his best work.

That happened at a curious
time in my life

because I was at a very low point.

My family was breaking up.

I was living in Los Angeles,
which was a foreign city to me.

And I'd lost control, as I say,
of my family,

and my work, and my life, and it
was a very, very dark period.

And when he got into the studio
it was clear that he was eccentric,

but I didn't know that he was mad.

The atmosphere was one of guns.

I mean, that's really what was
going on, was guns.

The music was a subsidiary.

People were armed to the teeth.

All his friends, his bodyguards,
you know, and everybody was drunk.

So, you know, I mean, he was
slipping over bullets.

Biting into revolvers
in your hamburger.

I mean, Phil was beyond control.

I remember Phil shoved a revolver
into my neck and said, you know,

"Leonard, I love you."
I said, "I hope you do, Phil."

I think that if anybody, you know,
disappointed the project, it was me.

I didn't have the chops to sing
those songs.

I think a song like Memories
is a really dynamite tune.

I think the tune is great.

The lyric is touching,
I think it really does come out

of that high school gymnasium.

# So won't you let me see

# Won't you let me see

# I said won't you let me see

# Your naked body. #

One day, Suzanne,
with little Adam,

the same age as my son,
when I came back to Hydra,

was standing on the doorway...

..wondering when I was moving out,
so she could move in.

I remember that...

..seeing her, I somehow felt
a little bit taller,

a little bit stronger, a little bit
older, and a little bit wiser.

I got hold of something
when I saw her there with the baby,

and then I very calmly packed up,
took Axel and moved out.

SIGHS
Yeah.

So Marianne finally
decided that enough was enough

and she did have to go back
to Oslo. Her mother

had always wanted her to.

Wanted her to come here
and have a normal life.

Become a secretary.

Receptionist, or something
like that. And be normal.

So Marianne finally decided, "Yeah,
that's what I'm going to do."

So she came back up here,
became a secretary,

married a Norwegian man and...

..became the stepmother
to his children.

Had a very average, ordinary life,
and then every once in a while,

she would go back to Hydra,
visit her friends.

Out of the blue...

And I told you I had done Rebecca
and never heard from Leonard again.

I thought, "I did something.
What did I do? I did something."

He calls up, "Hey, man.
How're you doing?"

1984.

"Want to make a record?"

I'm saying, "I've been waiting...
Waiting for this phone call."

So we went in the studio and we did
Hallelujah fairly early,

and he played it for me
and it went...

HE PLAYS ON PIANO: Hallelujah

He had just bought a little Casio

synthesiser on 7th Avenue
and 49th Street - one of these

Dinka-dinka-dinka-dinka-dink
one-finger things.

And he fell in love with it.

He said, "I'm going to record this,
use it for the track."

So we put it down that way.

We're saying, "Holy crap, man.
This is really good.

"We've done something here."

Leonard was just grinning.

Even Marty, who was reluctant to
like anything I was involved in -

just said, "This is... This is it."

We bring him up to Columbia.

There's a new guy named
Walter Yetnikoff.

This was his first big thing.

And then he says,
"No, I don't like this at all."

And there's a famous quote -
you know,

"Leonard, I know you're great, but
I don't know if you're any good."

Something like that.

And he says, "We're not
going to release it."

And Marty then later says,
"John, I knew it.

"You ruined Leonard's career!
You have ruined...

"This is an un-releasable record,

it's the biggest disappointment
in our lives.

"I can't believe you
did this to Leonard"-

and he had loved it
earlier in the day -

and I'm saying, "Well, what do you
mean?" He said, "No, they hate it.

"They're not going to release it,"

at which point, he ceremoniously
threw my contract in the garbage.

I never got to sign it, and he said,

"And you're not going to be
working for Columbia any more."

There was a couple other artists I was
supposed to work with, and I was just...

That was...
That was it. I was done.

In the morning, we thought
we had this greatest of all

Leonard Cohen records.

And by the afternoon,
I was out of the business.

It was the end of the world.

That's when the whole
Mount Baldy thing happened.

That's a huge phase
in Leonard's life.

I didn't see him. I got out of
the record business, essentially,

because of how
this record went down.

# Yes, and I've seen your flag
on the marble arch

# But love is not a victory march

# It's a cold and
it's a broken hallelujah... #

This record was
monumentally important.

It was the anthem of anthems.

But to this day,
I've yet to see any royalties.

I think that, through all of
this searching and searching

for herself and for her identity
through all those years -

on Hydra and other places -

and having had, you know,
the first husband who was the writer

and the second husband
was the writer and singer,

and never really knowing who she was
except in comparison to them

or somehow in relation to them.

I think it took coming back here
for her to really find herself.

She was a really nice person -
very kind and very generous.

She really listened
to you when you talked.

Not a lot of people do that.

Most people, when they're talking
to you, they're kind of waiting

till they can say their next line,
you know.

But she was really interested,
and she really listened

and she really thought about it.

She was a very generous
and kind person.

I hadn't visited Hydra for 40 years.

It had changed from the wondrous
place you could live on $1,000 a year

to the playground of the very rich.

One of the only survivors of
the old Hydra is Don Lowe,

who lives up this path in this house

without electricity
or running water.

Don prefers candles and has a well.

Marianne introduced me to Don
in 1968.

He has since self-published
over 30 books.

Oh, there you are!

HE CHUCKLES

Don has lived on Hydra for 60 years.

The last time he left the island
was 25 years ago.

I made this for my...

I didn't want to get stuck and then
got nowhere to live, you see.

So... Wow, it's beautiful! It's
nice, you see? Yeah. Dug it out.

Did one of your children do that?
No, I did that.

DON LAUGHS
You did that? It's beautiful.

That's my idea of paradise.

You can cook here and
you can write a book here,

if you are that way inclined.

It's got a view...

..of the sea - and next door. This
is where Marianne was going to stay,

in the house there.

Marianne was going to stay where,
in the house...?

Just there. You can see it
through there.

She was very nice
at the end, Marianne.

Because she mellowed
and, you know...

Cos it was never easy
after Leonard -

cos every time he gave
a concert or something,

she would get caught up in it.

Every time he gave...

Every time he gave a concert,
she had an invitation.

And she was interviewed in Norway
and things like that,

and so she couldn't really...

She married a lovely guy afterwards,
divorced him and married him again.

And, yeah...
A very sweet man - Norwegian.

But, yeah. I got quite fond of her
at the end, Marianne.

I never had... When we were younger,
we lived our own way.

But in the end,
she became very close.

Mm.

BELL RINGS

CHANTING

Had some wonderful moments
on the road,

you know, travelling with musicians
and playing with the musicians.

But, by and large,
I didn't have what it took

to really enjoy my success
or my celebrity.

I was never able to locate it.

I was never able to use it.

That's beautiful, huh?

Doing what he did up there
came natural to him

cos of his discipline.

He became a servant
for years and years there.

He had to get up, like,
at 3:00 in the morning.

Some of the things he told me
that they did up there,

I don't know if
I coulda hung with that.

Your small... Yeah.
Your black bag? Yeah.

Brown bag. What did I do with it?

I just... Oh, in here, Roshi.
In here. Ah! In here.

My handbag... Your handbag...
Yeah. ..is still in car? Yeah.

OK.

You want to eat something, Roshi?
Eh? You want to eat something?

Yeah, no...

OK. OK.

Roshi was his spiritual adviser,
his Buddhist monk leader.

He centred him. It was like having
Mom and Dad watching you

if you think you're likely
to be tempted to stray.

I think it was his crutch.

And it also probably increased
his focus and concentration.

I'm trying to learn
some things about love.

Well, love is that activity that...

..that makes the power
of man and woman...

..that incorporates it
into your own heart,

where you can embody man and woman,
when you can embody hell and heaven,

when you can reconcile and contain,

when man and woman
becomes your content.

In other words, when your woman
becomes your own content

and you become her content,
that's love.

And you recognise the full equality
of that exchange.

Because if she's smaller than you,
she can't fill you.

And if you're larger than her,
you can't fill her.

So there has to be an understanding
that there really is an absolute

equality of power.

Different kinds of power, obvious...
Obviously, different kinds of magic,

different kinds of strength
different kinds of...movement

that's as different as night
and day. And it is night and day,

and it is the moon and the sun,
and it is the land and the sea,

and it is plus and minus,
it is heaven and hell.

It is all those antinomies,
but they're all equal.

I have experienced it.
I have experienced it.

You don't have to change the world.

There doesn't have
to be any revolutions.

I'm sure that everybody
already knows about all that

transpired along the way when
he came back down off the mountain.

He had no money, you know, because
this person that he had trusted,

a person that he would have
taken a bullet for, so to speak -

that's what he told me -

that he spent holidays with,
with her children and his children,

had absolutely sold him out,
and that it turned out

that a friendship that he thought
was the real deal

ended up being a really bad thing.

Well, the money seems to be gone.

As far as the manager - you know,
who was my dear friend...

I'm still rather fond of her,
but she...

There's been a judgment of...

..several million dollars
against her. But, you know, it's...

She doesn't seem to have any money.

It's impossible to collect it.

I don't know. I guess I should be
more worried than I am, but I...

But I'm not, so what can I say?
HE CHUCKLES

You know.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

All of a sudden, here he is.

He's now in his 70s,

but he has no money now.

He said to me, "All I can do
is get out there and tour

"and try to make some money."

He said, "I don't know
if I can do it or not."

It's...

It's been a long time since
I stood on this stage in London.

CHEERING

It was about, about
14 or 15 years ago. I was...

..60 years old -
just a kid with a crazy dream.

LAUGHTER

Suddenly, Leonard was
the hottest ticket in town.

And it went from our little
tour bus, with two sound engineers

and three roadies, to an entourage
of 59 people on his own jet.

# Show me slowly
what I only know the limits of

# And dance me to
the end of love... #

And he was making upwards
of $15 million every year,

one of the top-ten grossing acts.

He went from literally being
wiped out to incredible stardom.

CROWD CHEERS

MUSIC: So Long, Marianne
by Leonard Cohen

# Oh
Marianne

# It's time that we began

# To laugh and cry

# And cry and laugh
about it all again... #

It was a love story which had
50 chapters without being together.

HE LAUGHS

She had a compartment of her heart
which was always married to Leonard.

CROWD CHEERS

That's the beauty of
Marianne's and Leonard's history -

that they had this place
for each other...

..till the very end.

And it's not the bitter end.

It was a lovely end.

It's a very beautiful end.

Suddenly, one evening, I got an
SMS saying, "I'm at hospital.

"I'm going to die. Please take care
of Little Axel and Jan, my husband."

She asked me, "Could you...
Could you tell Leonard?"

And another thing she said was,
"Could you bring a camera

"because I still feel
I have something to say?

And in the morning,

there was this lovely letter
from Leonard to Marianne.

"Dearest Marianne...

"..I'm just a little behind you...

"..close enough to take your hand.

"This old body of mine has given up,
as yours has too.

"I've never forgotten your love
and your beauty.

"But you know that -
I don't have to say more.

"Safe travels, old friend.

"See you down the road.

"Endless love and gratitude,

"your Leonard."

THEY LAUGH

And the beautiful thing
was that this old sick man...

..reached his old sick lover...

..with a message that...

..she had always wanted to hear.

And...

..I think that...

..for Marianne, this was a ring
that started with leaving Oslo

and going into the adventure
with Axel and...

..meeting Leonard, losing Leonard...

..meeting Jan...

..having problems, of course,
with her son.

And then when this love letter
came from Leonard...

..I think she felt that
it was all completed.

So...

..that's what words of love can do.

Greece is a good place
to look at the moon, isn't it?

You can read by moonlight.

You can read on the terrace.

You can see a face
as you saw it when you were young.

There was good light then -
oil lamps and candles.

And those little flames
that floated on a cork in olive oil.

What I loved in my old life,
I haven't forgotten.

It lives in my spine.

Marianne and the child.

The days of kindness.

It rises in my spine
and it manifests as tears.

I pray that loving memory
exists for them too.

The precious ones I overthrew

for an education in the world.