By Maxine Bass
The love story of Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen comes to life in new miniseries
The world lost legendary poet, singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen in 2016, but the indelible music he left us continues to resonate.
Among his most memorable songs is “So Long, Marianne,” a tender farewell to a former lover. Now, a new Crave miniseries sharing the same title delves into the intense relationship that inspired that song, and many other Cohen compositions.
Premiering with two episodes this Wednesday, So Long, Marianne whisks us to the Greek isle of Hydra in the early ’60s, where Cohen (played by Oppenheimer’s Alex Wolff) meets an extraordinary Norwegian woman, Marianne Ihlen (Thea Sofie Loch Næss, The Last Kingdom).
“It is an intimate tale of two young people falling in love during a period of their life when they are trying to figure out who they are and their place in the world while one was becoming one of the most famous singers of all time,” notes the synopsis for the eight-part series created by Øystein Karlsen (Lillyhammer), which debuts days after what would have been Cohen’s 90th birthday.
The story begins in London, where Cohen has fled after quitting university. After enduring six months of grey skies and drizzling rain, he encounters a tanned and happy man while visiting his bank. When Cohen asks where he acquired such a tan, the man reveals he’s just returned from Hydra, describing the tiny island as paradise. Cohen immediately empties his bank account and buys a one-way ticket to Hydra.
While getting to know the island, he meets Ihlen, sparking a relationship that will endure for a decade, in the years leading up to his emergence as a music superstar.
Looming over the series is the fact that Cohen ultimately ended this relationship to pursue his career, a decision about which he had mixed feelings for the remainder of his life. “I sacrificed my love on the altar of fame,” he would say later.
Wolff spent a year-and-a-half “becoming Leonard,” working to master Cohen’s soft, slow voice with its Montreal-flavoured lilt, in addition to perfecting what he describes as the “Cohen slouch.” Wolff dove deep, studying such minute details as Cohen’s style of playing guitar, his handwriting, even the size of shoes that he wore.
“I think I did everything I could,” the young actor said in an interview with Variety. “At certain points, it got disgusting the amount I threw myself at it because it felt really good to allow him into my emotional orbit.”
That’s particularly true in scenes where Wolff performs on stage, demonstrating how much he immersed himself in all things Cohen. “That’s all me singing, all me playing,” he explained. “I’m not a studied actor, I really don’t know what I’m doing, so I really had to kind of . . . well, like Leonard said, ‘If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.’ So eventually, I just said f*** it, I’ll give everything to it. Øystein said to me: ‘Do you want to be Canadian all the time? Do you want to be singing in this? Do you want to smoke real cigarettes?’ And the answer was yes to all three of those.”
The project received the blessing of the Cohen family, who were consulted at all stages in its development.
“Cohen wanted to travel the world and be a pop star, Adam Cohen, his son, told us,” Karlsen divulged to The Hollywood Reporter, further musing that So Long, Marianne is “a story about what’s important in life. Long before Leonard became a sort of older statesman in his later years, he had success, everything that he had hoped for, but he was probably at his unhappiest.”
While Ilhen has often been described as Cohen’s “muse,” Wolff has come to view their relationship differently.
“I think the show from the get-go lets you know that it’s about two people and that they’re equals,” he said. “I love the title being So Long, Marianne and not being Leonard. One person got famous because the art that they were making became commercially successful. But I’ve never bought into the concept of a muse in general. It’s really about two people and their lives and this great, almost Shakespearean, revolutionary romance. But it was kind of happenstance how they found each other. What the show is really saying is look at these two rich, complex people and how lucky they are to have this time together, complex as it is.”
So Long, Marianne premieres Wednesday, September 25 on Crave1