East Cork Cinema Club will present a series of documentaries as part of the This Must Be The Place | The Great Island programme over the weekend of Fri 10th – Sun 12th March

€5 SUGGESTED DONATION PER SCREENING

Bird on A Wire
Sun 12 March
4pm

Directed by Tony Palmer
Produced by Martin J. Machat, 106 mins

A long-lost documentary that followed Leonard Cohen's 1972 tour of Europe. Directed by Tony Palmer, this intimate and compelling view of a man who, despite the rapturously received live tours before his death remained something of an enigmatic character. His songs, poems and novels might have, for thousands, become little guides into the innermost and darkest workings of their own hearts and souls - but Cohen, rarely interviewed, gave little away.

Which is why Bird On A Wire is, for the Cohen aficionado, a vital document and insight into the man. It's a film very much of its time, in the language spoken as much as the trousers and the pipes that Cohen's band like to smoke. It captures, like road films must, the funny, sad, high and low times of being on tour. Standouts are Cohen's humour and humility. On one hand, his dealing with the astonishingly forward and stunningly beautiful female fans who pursue him ("I fear I shall disgrace myself tonight", he tells one) reveals a man with very earthy urges. On the other, his difficulty of accepting his fame and audience, frustration with a recalcitrant PA - he wishes to give to the audience 'this broken down nightingale' of his voice, not wanting to cheat them.  It is also a compelling document of Europe in the early Seventies, of life on the road for ordinary musicians, passing through grey airports and stopping at the side of the road for sandwiches while an atmosphere of war and hostility played out in the news pages. Strangely enough, Bird On A Wire nearly never saw light of day. Cohen himself re-edited much of the footage before its original release in 1974, following which it was largely unavailable, the singer holding onto the original tape. It was left to Stephen Machat, the son of Cohen's manager Marty, to restore the film with the assistance of original director Tony Palmer.

This event is part of the This Must Be The Place | The Great Island Project 2017