So Long Marianne TV series filmed on Hydra

[Henning]

There must be something in between "slept with everyone" and "prudishness" I guess.

[LisaLCFan]

I finally got around to watching this series. TV to slit your wrists by, is a phrase that comes to mind. Talk about depressing and dreary. Leonard and co. from that era were just too dysfunctional and unhappy for me to enjoy spending 8 hours watching them self-destruct.

On the plus side, it was a well done series, despite not being my cup of tea -- top marks for artistic merit. There was certainly a lot of beautiful scenery, the sets were nice and recreated times and places interestingly and realistically, the main actors did a good job in their portrayals, and it was great to hear some of Leonard's poems and songs interspersed throughout the series. But, I wish I'd just listened to Leonard's early albums and read a bit of his poetry instead -- would have been far more life-enhancing than inflicting myself with all that misery!

Of course, other people's mileage may vary -- this was just my personal reaction -- I've never been a fan of dysfunctional-relationship dramas (even if they are "real" people who I otherwise greatly admire!).

[mirka]

I finally got around to watching this series. TV to slit your wrists by, is a phrase that comes to mind. Talk about depressing and dreary. Leonard and co. from that era were just too dysfunctional and unhappy for me to enjoy spending 8 hours watching them self-destruct.

Thank you Lisa, for saving me from watching this misery + dysfunction. I got same impression watching "Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love". Had no idea that those beautiful words + music were created by so much dysfunction, almost felt sorry for artists. and first of all for their loved ones + family.
Marianne turned out to have healthy instincts to go back to real life, leaving the show behind. Her son, and other children raised on Hydra were not as lucky.
Thank you, again.

[LisaLCFan]

Thank you Lisa, for saving me from watching this misery + dysfunction...

Glad to be of help!

[Nothing left to do]

During the last week I finally had sufficient time to watch all eight episodes of this series in the ARD Mediathek. This TV series is very well done and it is worth seeing it. As far as I know most of the events are accurately displayed and the chronological sequence has been generally observed. The outside scenes in Hydra give a believable and convincing impression of the island in the 60s although it presumbly looks rather different today. The makers obviously paid a lot of attention to the details and the accuracy. This applies as well to the scenes in Oslo, Montreal and New York. The series recreated these specific times with a lot of excellent and beautiful scenes. This does not mean that everything was nice to watch, especially some of the conversation scenes in the island tavern provided a deep insight into the problems and troubles some of the persons carried with them.
All of this wouldn't have worked so well without the excellent actors. I have to especially highlight Alex Wolff. Not only did he look very similar to the young Cohen but he obviously has studied his gestures, manners and way of expressing very well so he was able to give a convincing portrayal so that sometimes you could confuse him with the real person. The bouts of depression were hard to watch but very realistically executed. Finally his guitar playing and singing was very good and sufficiently similar to Cohen's in that time. It was also very effective that Cohen's songs were used throughout the series although some of them presumably weren't written at that time they appear in the series.
All the other actors were well chosen too and were good personifications of the real individuals. Thea Sofie Loch Naess' was a very convincing Marianne and the same holds true for the actors of Charmian Clift, George Jonhnston, Irving Layton and Axel Jensen. I really enjoyed watching this series and it allowed to immerse deeply into these crucial years for Cohen and all the others.

As I am not a great expert one final question: Does anyone know if and how it is possible to download the eight episodes from the ARD Mediathek?

[Hartmut]

one final question: Does anyone know if and how it is possible to download the eight episodes from the ARD Mediathek?

You can use this tool:
https://mediathekviewweb.de/

Here are some (German language) instructions:
https://www.pcwelt.de/article/1201020/a ... eht-s.html

It seems to work. I just tried it out with the trailer.

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Addendum:

That method doesn't seem to be able to download the original language version.
You could try this tool instead (I haven't tried it):
https://jdownloader.org/

I should also probably add that I suspect both methods only work if you are in Germany.

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Addendum 2:
Tried it. No luck with the JDownloader and the original language version.

------

Addendum 3:
The browser plugin Video DownloadHelper does the trick.
https://www.downloadhelper.net/

[hydriot]

The outside scenes in Hydra give a believable and convincing impression of the island in the 60s although it presumbly looks rather different today.

The island is the real star of the film. Generally, I am rather critical of films made on Hydra but the makers of this one have made a big effort to be accurate.

But do bear in mind that the views of Hydra are sanitised. In the sixties there was a great deal of poverty on the island. Gardens were very basic and not as lush as depicted in the film. I remember ragged children dragging lumps of ice to a home without electricity, teenagers with limbs deformed by malnutrition, and very few tavernas. Katsikas was a grocery store with a snug at the back: where everyone caroused was in a taverna a few doors along whose name I cannot remember (in Leonard's book of sheet music, there is a photo of him, Marianne, Chuck and Gorden carousing there).

But I did very much like the touches of authenticity: for example, Marianne bringing wicker flasks of cheap Kampas wine up the street (not water as the film implies). And the fact that the fim-crew got permission to use the real 'Australia House' where the Johnstons lived.

If you want to know more about the late fifties and early sixties on the island, do read Peel Me a Lotus.

[Nothing left to do]

You can use this tool:
https://mediathekviewweb.de/

Here are some (German language) instructions:
https://www.pcwelt.de/article/1201020/a ... eht-s.html

It seems to work. I just tried it out with the trailer.

------

Addendum:

That method doesn't seem to be able to download the original language version.
You could try this tool instead (I haven't tried it):
https://jdownloader.org/

I should also probably add that I suspect both methods only work if you are in Germany.

------

Addendum 2:
Tried it. No luck with the JDownloader and the original language version.

------

Addendum 3:
The browser plugin Video DownloadHelper does the trick.
https://www.downloadhelper.net/

Thank you very much for these links and your very helpful explanations. I used Mediathekviewveb to download the German language version and everything worked perfectly.It is also possible to download an additional file with the German subtitles but as you have written this tool provides no access to the English laguage edition. As I am interested to watch this series in English as well I will try my luck using the Video DownloadHelper one of the next days. Thanks again for your efforts.

[Hartmut]

I used Mediathekviewveb to download the German language version and everything worked perfectly.

Glad to hear that you were successful!

[Nothing left to do]

The island is the real star of the film. Generally, I am rather critical of films made on Hydra but the makers of this one have made a big effort to be accurate.

But do bear in mind that the views of Hydra are sanitised. In the sixties there was a great deal of poverty on the island. Gardens were very basic and not as lush as depicted in the film. I remember ragged children dragging lumps of ice to a home without electricity, teenagers with limbs deformed by malnutrition, and very few tavernas. Katsikas was a grocery store with a snug at the back: where everyone caroused was in a taverna a few doors along whose name I cannot remember (in Leonard's book of sheet music, there is a photo of him, Marianne, Chuck and Gorden carousing there).

But I did very much like the touches of authenticity: for example, Marianne bringing wicker flasks of cheap Kampas wine up the street (not water as the film implies). And the fact that the fim-crew got permission to use the real 'Australia House' where the Johnstons lived.

If you want to know more about the late fifties and early sixties on the island, do read Peel Me a Lotus.

Thanks for your additional remarks. I watched last night the movie 'Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love' by Nick Broomfield which is an interesting addition to the series. This film includes some scenes shot on Hydra during the 60s. These give an impression that the actual living conditions were obviously less comfortable than in the TV series. Nevertheless the producers of the series essentially succeeded in creating the atmosphere of a Greek island in the 60s, which contributed to the authentic look of the episodes taking place on Hydra. I agree that the island is a star of the movie but so are the great actors.
Thanks too for recommending Charmian Clift's book.

[blonde madonna]

Someone reviving a long dead other thread brought me back here but this one has been an interesting read and given me a few thoughts.

I’ve watched one episode of the TV series and I thought Noah Taylor and Anna Torv great (Newsreader with Torv is worth watching) but find it a bit cringy watching the Cohen storyline.

I’m reading ‘Erotic Vagrancy’ about Burton and Taylor at the moment and it really highlights how impossible it is to do biography on people who have so much mythology surrounding them.

Casual sex between the Cohen and Clift is possible (11 years age difference, claustrophobic expat environment but lots of drinking) but from what I’ve read my impression was that Cohen had more of a relationship with Johnston than Clift.

I’ve also read Clean Straw for Nothing (and would recommend it for its descriptions of Hydra too) and there’s no mention of Cohen! Johnston talks more about his own failings and is very kind to the character who may be based on Clift (although it is fiction) despite her fears at the time of writing.

Johnston and Clift both returned to Australia in the mid-60s with pretty serious drinking problems by all accounts and that had more to do with their tragic deaths than the publication of a book.

If only the dead could talk. I preferred watching the documentary on SBS ‘Leonard Cohen - If it be your will’ with some great live covers recorded in Canada and archival footage from the family. I still miss him like my father or my dog…

[ForYourSmile]

If you want to know more about the late fifties and early sixties on the island, do read Peel Me a Lotus.

Thanks, I'm on it now, I got a Catalan version “A la recerca del lotus” from the public library. I am still on the prologue by Jordi Bossoms, I don't know who he is, and he thrilled me. I wanted to share the part that talks about Cohen. (from image with Google Translate)

…And in 1960 a twenty-six-year-old poet disembarked there, who had published a couple of books and who had been working on his first novel in a boarding house in Hampstead, London, thanks to a grant of two thousand dollars that the Canada Council for the Arts had granted him. His name was Leonard Cohen, and he was telling everyone that, sick of London's rainy April, he had gone into the Bank of Greece and asked the first Greek he met there what the weather was like in his country. But this was not entirely true. Leonard had met Barbara Rothschild at a party, and discovered she was about to marry the Greek artist Nikos Ghika, who owned a forty-room mansion on the sunny island of Hydra, where writers such as Lawrence Durrell, Henry Miller, Cyril Connolly and Patrick Leigh Fermor had stayed. He thought, of course, that he could stay there too. So two weeks later he set foot in Hydra for the first time. At the harbor, as George and Charmian watched him sitting on a terrace, he asked for directions to the Ghika mansion. He climbed steps and more steps to get there. He knocked on the door and made the mistake of dropping Rothschild's name into the ears of a Greek landlady faithful to the painter's first wife. "You better go" she told him. “We don't need any more Jews here." And young Leonard went down to the harbor again, desolated, not without first cursing the mansion, which, by chance or not, burned to ashes not long after.

As it could not be otherwise, it was George and Charmian who hosted the Canadian poet. They let him sleep in his study, and put a table and a chair for him on the terrace, where he spent the hours writing in the sun. They corrected his manuscripts and they looked for him a house on the island, the purchase of which, as he would later claim, was the best decision of his life. They also introduced Marianne, who had just had a child with Axel, but from whom she was already separating, because he was planning to run away to America with his new lover, the painter Patricia Amlin. And they even organized his first concert for him, after encouraging him to sing his own songs. Leonard's gratitude to George and Charmian was always immense. "Their mythical quality went beyond life", he said of them in an interview with the Australian journalist Marie Knuckey. “They drank and wrote more than anyone else, got sick and healed more than anyone else, cursed and blessed more than anyone else, and were by far the most supportive. They were a source of inspiration.” And in 1980, when starting his first concert in Sydney, he said that «this concert is for George Johnston and Charmian Clift, who taught me to write”. …

About the series; I don't care if that relationship between Cohen and Clift existed, for moral reasons, not at all. What worries me is that they change the story to make the film more interesting, that form of relationship doesn't appear in any of the biographies I know. That bothers me about the biopics.

Hydra appears as we see it now, as Hidriot tells us the scene of the early 60s had to be very different.

I really liked the dramatic part of Dress Rehearsal Rag.