I saw Tony Palmer present this film recently, and he talked about it for about an hour. The film was made in the early '70s and, as Cohen wasn't happy with it, Palmer passed it to Cohen to re-edit. The re-edited version was shown a couple of times but was deemed to be pretty much a mess. The film was then lost. Recently, the audio tapes were found, together with editing fragments of film. The film here is a reconstitution by Tony Palmer of the original film, using the fragments. I don't know how close it is to the original edit, as Palmer was working from memory after a thirty-year gap. It was intended by Palmer to be a film about Leonard Cohen; not just a record of a tour. Palmer had complete access to Cohen for the duration of the tour and it is a very interesting and moving record of a significant artist in his prime. The price of the DVD is amply justified by the Jerusalem concert sequence alone, which is amazing and very moving, and it left me emotionally drained. It can be argued that some of Cohen's performances on this DVD are superior to the versions on the records that made his name, and I know there is industry interest in obtaining the rights to the tapes to release a CD.
I agree with the previous reviewer that there is a sequence of footage from the Vietnam war that is gruesome, but it is not inappropriate because it occurs just after Cohen speaks about the political meaning in his work, and this was in the early '70s in the aftermath of the Vietnam war when political currents were running fast and powerfully.