The Hotel Chelsea, on west 23rd Street, tucked between Seventh and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan’s Chelsea, is the stuff of legend. Playwright Arthur Miller lived here for six years and said, “This hotel does not belong to America; there are no vacuum cleaners, no rules and no shame.”
An elderly tenant, seen in the new documentary “Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel,” now playing in theatres, says, “It’s a fantasy land where people go to get away from reality.”
Opened in 1884, for more than a century it was a stand-alone example of bohemianism, immortalized in songs by Bob Dylan (“Sara”), Jefferson Airplane (“Third Week in the Chelsea”) and most famously, Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel #2.” It’s featured in films like Andy Warhol’s “Chelsea Girls” and the sensual “9½ Weeks.
Punk goddess Patti Smith lived there with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Abstract painter Mark Rothko had a studio in the dining room. Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick almost accidentally burned it down and Nancy Spungen died there, allegedly (but probably not) at the hand of her boyfriend, Sex Pistol’s bass player Sid Vicious. Arthur C. Clarke wrote “2001: A Space Odyssey” while in residence and Jack Kerouac had a one-night stand there with Gore Vidal.
It is legendary, but the days of wild abandon, avant garde art and artists who traded apartments for paintings are long gone, a victim of changing times and gentrification. “Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel” is a document of the dying days of a cultural legend and the birth of another boho-chic New York City hotel.
Directed by Belgian filmmakers Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdiert, this is a fly-on-the-wall, impressionistic film that ignores the Chelsea’s rock n’ roll legacy, the scandals and notable sex acts. Instead, it contemplatively documents the (mostly) elderly residents of the Chelsea, who, in the words of Dylan Thomas, another former resident, refuse to “go gentle into that good night.”
A look at the hotel through the eyes of the people who lived there, who created their art there and raised their families there, paints a different picture of the storied building than we usually see. Strip away the sensationalism and a melancholy portrait of a bygone era emerges, framed by architect Philip Hubert’s ornate Victorian Gothic stained glass and wrought iron stairway designs. As construction of the Chelsea Mach 2 tears away at the memories of the remaining residents, they recollect the heart and soul of a place that, for decades, gave shelter to dreamers of all sorts.
Those days are gone now. The few remaining old timers, those who didn’t take the buyouts offered by developers, now must use service elevators to avoid upsetting the upscale, paying hotel guests. However, in this film at least, they keep the bohemian flame alive, even as the winds of change are try to extinguish it.
The name Marianne Ihlen may not ring a bell on its own but mention Leonard Cohen in the same sentence and melancholic strains of one of the poet’s biggest hits floods the ears. She inspired two of his most famous songs, “So Long, Marianne” and “Bird on a Wire” and was the woman who “held on to me like I was a crucifix as we went kneeling through the dark.” A new documentary, “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love,” paints a more complete picture of a person often thought of as Cohen’s muse.
Their story begins on Hydra in 1960, a place where artists could survive on little money. Ihlen, fresh off a divorce from mercurial writer Axel Jensen and raising a child on the Greek isle when she met Cohen, a down-on-his-heels poet looking for inspiration. They fell in love, did drugs and searched for inspiration. Cohen wrote feverishly, penning his novel “Beautiful Losers” there. Today the book is considered a classic but at the time it was met with derision– Robert Fulford it, “the most revolting book ever written in Canada”—and failed at bookstores.
To make money Cohen and Ihlen returned to North America to begin his career as a songwriter. Folk singer Judy Collins, who recorded his song “Suzanne” a full year before he released his own version and convinced him to sing on stage. Cohen’s sophistication and romantic balladry caught on and soon he was a star, much to Ihlen’s disdain. Feeling left behind she wrote a letter to Collins, rebuking the singer for covering Leonard’s songs and “ruining her life.”
When they parted. After seven years, Cohen was on his way to becoming a superstar, Ihlen returned to a more normal life, largely fading from public view. Using archival footage—home movies shot on Hydra, news footage and photography coupled with new interviews— director Nick Broomfield stresses the importance of Ihlen in Cohen’s life. Broomfeild himself is an Ihlen disciple. They met on Hydra and she helped him find his vocation as a documentary filmmaker. He returns the favour with a loving portrait of a woman who served as an almost mythical figure, a muse. Overshadowed by the artists she inspired she is nonetheless well served by the documentary which gives dimension to a person best known as a song lyric.
Ihlen passed away in Oslo in July, 2016. At the end of her life Cohen sent a message, read to her bedside and seen in the film. “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine,” it reads in part. “Endless love, see you down the road.” Four months later he too was gone, joined in death as he had been in life with his muse. “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love” is a sensitive and intimate portrayal of their time together, a love story that only spanned a handful of years but resonated for decades.
On Saturday October 25 Richard hosted a panel at the International Festival of Authors with Helle V. Goldman, Kari Hesthamar and Marianne Ihlen. They are, respectively, the translator, author and subject of So Long, Marianne.
Here’s a bit of the story: At 22, Marianne Ihlen travelled to the Greek island of Hydra with Norwegian writer Axel Jensen. While Axel wrote, Marianne kept house. One day while Marianne was shopping in a grocery store, a man asked her to join him and some friends at their table. He introduced himself as Leonard Cohen, then a little-known Canadian poet. When the erratic and explosive Axel abandoned Marianne and their newborn son for another woman, Leonard stepped in and a new, tender love affair began. So Long, Marianne by Kari Hesthamar, documents her story.
“This wasn’t a difficult panel to host,” said Richard about the event, “they told great stories while I sat and listened.” Thanks to IFOA and ECW Press for asking Richard to sit in with these incredible women.
Cost: $18/$15 supporters/FREE students & youth 25 and under. More info HERE!
The author, translator and subject of So Long, Marianne discuss this fascinating book. Marianne Ihlen was Canadian poet Leonard Cohen’s muse and lover. Richard Crouse moderates.
Here’s some info on the book! “The story of the enigmatic beauty who captured the hearts of two extraordinary men. At 22, Marianne Ihlen travelled to the Greek island of Hydra with writer Axel Jensen. While Axel wrote, Marianne kept house, until Axel abandoned her and their newborn son for another woman. One day while Marianne was shopping in a little grocery store, in walked a man who asked her to join him and some friends outside at their table. He introduced himself as Leonard Cohen, then a little-known Canadian poet. Complemented by previously unpublished poems, letters, and photographs, So Long, Marianne is an intimate, honest account of Marianne’s life story — from her youth in Oslo, her romance with Axel, to her life in an international artists colony on Hydra in the 1960s, and beyond. The subject of one of the most beautiful love songs of all time, Marianne Ihlen proves to be more than a muse to Axel and Leonard; her journey of self-discovery, romance, and heartache is lovingly recounted in So Long, Marianne.”
