In the penultimate release in this partnership between NOWNESS, the Leonard Cohen estate and Sony Music Canada, director Vincent Haycock shares his visual interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s life and lyrics. Drawing on his experience directing electrifying music videos for Florence & the Machine, Kelsey Lu, Kamasi Washington and Sam Fender, Haycock shares his artistic response to the musician’s posthumous album, Thanks For The Dance.

"For our second-to-last video in this series we knew we wanted something simple but striking, once again allowing the power of Leonard Cohen's lyrics to take centre stage,” says NOWNESS creative director Bunny Kinney. “We love Vincent's artistic response to The Hills, featuring this world-weary protagonist on the streets of Texas, reminiscing his past as he too tries on that iconic fedora and, for a moment, embodies the man behind the music. The resulting video is beautiful and elegant. It's easy to see why Vincent is one of the most talented and renowned music video directors working today."

“Leonard is such an amazing poet and you can’t listen to his music without having images pop into your head,” says Haycock, who also cites filmmakers Robert Bresson, Andrei Tarkovsky and Jim Jarmusch as the inspiration behind the texture and rhythm of the project. “I kept seeing a man sitting in a chair waiting for the world to end but it wasn’t sad. Rather, there was a relief or even a desire for it to end.”

Charged with enigmatic visual metaphors and complemented by Isaach De Bankolé’s stoic yet personable performance, The Hills is a fitting cinematic tribute to the only song on the album scored by Cohen. As his film counterpart ambles back to the edge of town and a heavenly chorus picks up, the curtain of reality burns away only to reveal a new one.

“My initial thoughts of the song was that Leonard was singing about dying but then I realized he had written this poem well before his death,” says the director. “The chair symbolizes a final resting place, but there is also an idea of accepting what is coming and enjoying it."

Cohen had the uncommon privilege of being able to “settle the debts of the soul”—he once penned—by leaving behind a body of work that prepared his family, friends and fans for his passing. When Bankolé confidently strolls into the waiting darkness the audience is reminded of Cohen’s creative resolve and the undimmed passions he retained till the end.

“The song is already pretty heavy and I was worried I couldn’t do it justice,” Haycock says. “So I meditated on his legacy, thought of a character that might have some of the traits Leonard told stories about and focused that energy and angst into this film.”