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We see photos of them as babies with their mother during an offhanded mention that his family was breaking up.

Singer Regina Spektor marvels about his graciousness at his Coachella performance in 2009, saying that it was like Cohen was teaching the audience how to be good.Īnd yet, for all the talk about and praise for his seeking, this is a film that seems completely uninterested in the fact that he's the father of two children. Much of the film is devoted to chronicling Cohen's own spiritual journey and his evolving relationship with his Jewish faith, from his poetry to his later years at a zen center atop Mt.

The archival footage, too, is pretty extraordinary and elegantly paired with Cohen's music throughout. One of the main voices is journalist and author Larry "Ratso" Sloman who interviewed Cohen many times over 30 years and whose tapes of those interviews are used to let Cohen speak for himself. The filmmakers are enamored of their eloquent subjects, from Judy Collins and composer/arranger John Lissauer to a childhood friend and his rabbi Mordechi Finley. As the title says, it is a journey and a long one at that. It feels, in some ways, like two different films: The first part is a standard biographical documentary that then shifts focus to "Hallelujah's" resurrection outside of Cohen, before finally turning attention back to Cohen and his triumphant final tour. It's an interestingly stitched together film that starts at the end - his final performance in 2013, singing "Hallelujah," of course - and rewinds to the beginning of his songwriting career to trace how he got there. Now, four decades after its initial recording, it's downright ubiquitous, a regular feature in movies, television shows, and singing competitions around the world. But in the new documentary " Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song," in theaters Friday, directors Dayna Goldfine and Dan Gellar examine how despite the odds, the song managed to take on a life of its own thanks, in varying degrees, to Bob Dylan, John Cale, Jeff Buckley and Shrek.