LEONARD COHEN

8 Nov

(21 September 1934 - 7 November 2016)

The Canadian singer-songwriter, philosopher-poet and novelist had little to do with the cinema, although he did appear in a few titles, but many (approaching some 250) films and television programmes have used his songs as part of their soundtracks. Cohen’s appearances as an actor were few and far between: just four odd shorts, playing a singer in The Ernie Game (a Canadian film from 1967) and a TV appearance on Miami Vice in 1986. However, his songs have been heard on everything from Altman’s McCabe and Mrs Miller and A Wedding to Pump Up the Volume and Natural Born Killers, and from Breaking the Waves and Shrek to EastEnders.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

LEONARD COHEN

RAOUL COUTARD

TAMMY GRIMES