In fact, the real relationship between Cohen and Marianne extended far beyond their initial divide.
“Leonard had a deep love for her to the end as well.”
I’ve never forgotten your love and your beauty.
Credit: Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
But you know that.
Safe travels old friend.
See you down the road."
Roz Kelly/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
It helped that the director had a personal connection to the story.
Eight years earlier, she met Cohen on the isle, where they lived together for the next seven.
She and Cohen always had an open relationship; each took many lovers.
For a fleeting time, one of hers was Broomfield.
(She also introduced him to acid.)
“And Marianne was somebody very beautiful and sensitive who really listened to me.
She gave me lots of encouragement and became a very influential person in my life.”
Ihlen served a similar purpose for Cohen.
By then, Cohen had published two books of poetry,Let Us Compare MythologiesandSpice Box of Earth.
But his books made no money.
Some even doused the local donkeys.
“There was a danger hanging over people.”
The film features lots of footage of Ihlen on the island, with, and without, Cohen.
Much of it came from cinema verite pioneer D.A.
“Penny is a poet with a camera,” Broomfield says, of Pennebaker.
“I had never seen anything like the magic that Penny wove around her.
His footage gave my film the soul of Marianne.”
“She was very hard on herself.
She couldn’t accept that her talent was as being an encourager for people.
And that’s a real talent.
She saw things in people they didn’t see in themselves.
She was crucial in Leonard’s move from a poet, and erstwhile novelist, to a songwriter.”
That one-two punch led to his signing by Columbia Records.
“Bird on the Wire,” in particular, brims with imagery of the house they shared.
Poets do not make great husbands."
While Cohen’s distance greatly saddened Ihlen, Broomfield says “she never considered herself a victim.
He gave her an amazing amount, either in a pragmatic way or an emotional one.
And he looked after her for a long time after they split up.”
Later, she reverted to a more structured life in Oslo, where she married again.
Still, she and Cohen stayed in periodic touch.
The sustained nature of their connection nails its central irony.
Their relationship was both fragile and resilient, distant for long stretches yet covertly enduring.
“That was very beautiful,” she beams.
“It was not a bitter end,” Mollestad says in the film.
“It was a lovely end.”
“All lovers do things they regret,” says Broomfield.
“But Leonard’s final lines drive home the meaningfulness of love, despite everything.”
Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love hits select theaters on July 5.
