MEL AND LENNY

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, the concert doc featuring the words and songs of the great Canadian poet, novelist and tunesmith, was out in theaters this summer, and is just now out on DVD. The film begins with the Icon Productions logo -- a face-in-a-box image that's also affixed to the first reels of the controversial and bloody The Passion of the Christ and the super-violent Maya chase pic, Apocalypto. Yes, Icon is Mel Gibson's company, and Mad Mel helped make I'm Your Man.

"Leonard Cohen is this wonderful poet," Gibson says of the Montreal gentleman behind such plaintive ditties as "Sisters of Mercy," "Suzanne" and "Tower of Song." "I grew up listening to that stuff. We’d listen to it and loved it and saw the truth of it, but we laughed at it, we also cried at it. He’s an amazing person."

So, when fledgling filmmaker Lian Lunson came to Gibson's company with the idea to do a Cohen doc, and invite musicians Antony, Jarvis Cocker, Beth Orton, Rufus Wainwright, Bono and The Edge to pay tribute, Gibson said yes. "She laid this thing out and I said, `Lets go for it.'... And boy, nobody thought it would do well, but she made it, and she made it on a shoestring, and it's done really well. It endears you to him, and you can see the wide range of music and poetry… I just dig him. He’s a very private, very reclusive man, very humble man. I was proud to have been a part of putting that piece of entertainment and insight on the screen."