Five-disc retrospective box set of the 1972 tour + the film Bird On A Wire

[ThanksfortheTrouble]

The endnotes of the recently published ‘Inside His Archive, Leonard Cohen Everybody Knows’ advise that a new box-set is due for release this year including the Special Edition of the Tony Palmer film ‘Bird on a Wire’, including previously unseen footage.

Does anyone have any more info on this?

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Thanks.

Ian

[Mabeanie1]

Thanks for posting this Ian. One of the video exhibits at the Everybody Knows exhibition in Toronto was a short film featuring footage from the 1972 tour. The exhibit details stated

"This unseen digitized 16mm footage of Cohen's 1972 tour is sourced from a new film directed by Robert de Young. The Cohen archives contain 11 complete audio concerts of the 1972 tour and 22 hours of unseen footage."

I had no idea what the new film referred to was and meant to follow up when I got home. This is what I found for Robert de Young:

Dr Robert de Young worked for ABC Radio and Television in Australia and is a documentary filmmaker. He has produced and directed films on Errol Flynn, Peter Finch, Rod Taylor, Jerry Lewis, rock journalist Lillian Roxon, Sam Spiegel, and the 100-year history of Tarzan which have been screened in film festivals and broadcast throughout the world. He has been working in Los Angeles with the Leonard Cohen Archive Project since mid-2017.

I suppose the release may be affected by the current dispute concerning the LC family trust. Guess we'll see.

Wendy

[HugoD]

In 2019 there was a similar project by Tony Palmer on pledge music that went belly up. As I remember the release kept on dragging for months due to ownership rights of the materials and in the end it just died. It also didn’t help that pledge music went bankrupt in the same period.

Let see what happens this time.

[ThanksfortheTrouble]

Yes, HugoD, I lost money on an advance purchase of that Special Edition…..

And I wonder, then, Wendy, if the Robert De Young movie is using Palmer’s original footage, or if there is another source for the unseen material.

[Mabeanie1]

Yes, HugoD, I lost money on an advance purchase of that Special Edition…..

And I wonder, then, Wendy, if the Robert De Young movie is using Palmer’s original footage, or if there is another source for the unseen material.

Another one who lost money here ….

I would suspect that de Young is using Palmer’s footage but there was stuff in the Toronto film that I hadn’t seen before, presumably derived from the 22 unseen hours. I’m assuming/ hoping the 5 disc retrospective will be the 11 concert recordings referred to at the exhibition.

Wendy

[ThanksfortheTrouble]

Well, with the prospect of this release this year AND that of the return of Doctor Who in November AND a brand new Doctor in December, maybe the future isn’t murder, after all….

[frederik]

Has there been any additional information regarding that anticipated box set? It sounds like a must-have and something to look forward to this Fall!

Frederik

[ThanksfortheTrouble]

No, Frederik, I’m afraid not, I’ve been scouring the net like a bird on the wire and checking Amazon and elsewhere like a drunk in a midnight choir.

So far there’s nothing to follow and there’s nowhere to go, but I’ll certainly continue to look amid the garbage and the flowers and hopefully eventually find something that comes all the way from China.

Or even Hipgnosis.

Ian