Classic Film Series: Hallelujah

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song

Monday, January 27, 2:00 p.m. at TBT

“Hallelujah” may arguably be the most famous song of the current age. This song has become ubiquitous, played at weddings and funerals, performed in singing competitions, featured in countless movies, and sung with feeling in synagogues, churches, and other devotional settings. Yet Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” almost never came to be. It took Cohen years to write the song, and he barely found a record producer to release the song once complete. It took several years following its quiet release on a small label in 1983 for “Hallelujah” to attain its blockbuster status. 

The documentary Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, a Song (2022) tells the remarkable story of the creation of this song and its long path to discovery and later fame. In this remarkably captivating documentary, we watch Leonard Cohen talk about the complex process of creativity and his sources for the painstaking development of the song. We hear about the difficulties Cohen had in the early 1980s in getting commercial support for his work. We see the powerful influence of other artists who included the song in their live sets and earned an audience during the mid-1980s and early 1990s. This insightful and beautiful film expands our understanding of Cohen’s poetic and musical achievements in “Hallelujah” and the meaning this widely loved song has come to hold in the world today.

                          Tickets are on sale at the door for $5.