Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love

'Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love' is a documentary that covers the relationship between the musician and filmmaker Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, a Norwegian painter he met on the picturesque Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s. Cohen was a young Canadian working on his first experimental novel in the drug-addled scene of 1960s expat artists, whereas Ihlen was raising her son, Axel, after her novelist husband left her for another woman. The two free spirited artists fell in love, with Marianne Ihlen acting as a muse for many of Cohen's greatest pieces of music such as 'So Long, Marianne', 'Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye' and 'Birds on a Wire' as well as his first film. 'Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love' explores how the two immersed themselves in the radical artistic culture of Hydra in the 1960s and how their relationship, which shifted from romantic to platonic, remained until both of their deaths in 2016. The documentary is directed by Nick Broomfield ('Whitney: Can I Be Me?', 'Kurt and Courtney') who himself had a relationship with Ihlen and who knew the couple personally, and thus offers a direct insight into the dynamic between the two. 'Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love' examines the traditionally gendered idea of muse/artist through the lens of this intense romance and friendship that served as the inspiration for much of Cohen's work.