I was fortunate to see the new documentary film One to One: John and Yoko over the weekend. It was by far one of the best John Lennon documentaries I have ever seen. I know I most likely say that about every John documentary, but this one was exceptional in presentation, sound, and visuals.
There is some confusion about this film, so let me clear up what this documentary is not. It is NOT the full One to One concert from 1972. There are a lot of great songs from this concert during the film: Mother, Imagine, Hound Dog, Cold Turkey, Come Together, and several others were featured. It is a documentary about the "New York" years of John's life -- from when John and Yoko left England to when they separated in 1973.
What I really appreciated about this documentary was that there wasn't a narrator or any "talking heads" to tell the story. The story was told in a very creative way. As we all know, John loved flipping the channels on American TV. There was a recreation of John and Yoko's Bank Street apartment, and it showed the television at the foot of the bed. The whole story was told as if we were flipping through the channels along with John. Early 1970s clips from TV shows, news footage, and commercials were shown. I really loved this way of telling the story because the only words that were used were words from that time period, including those of John and Yoko.
Because John knew his phone was tapped during this period, he started recording his phone calls so that he would have a record of what the government had recorded. Some of those phone calls were in this documentary and were great. A lot of really good insights about the breakup of the Beatles and John's mindset during that time. I had to think about how naive John was initially and how he quickly became wise to what was happening.
There was so much footage that I had never seen before, including new television interviews and home video footage of John and Yoko in Massachusetts.
What really blew me away, though, was how crisp and clean all of the footage looked. There was a very short clip from the "Freetime" television show (the program where the guy fell off the ladder), and it was crystal clear! Throughout the entire showing, I kept going, "Wow—that looks great... wow!"
The film will be showing on Amazon Prime for rent starting May 8. I highly recommend everyone see it. I will include the Amazon affiliate link once it is available.
>I had to think about how naive John was initially and how he quickly became >wise to what was happening.
ReplyDeleteSort of agree. He was a complete idiot to be honest, being taken in by unpleasant and phoney 'revolutionaries' like Jerry Rubin and being drawn into crazy plans. It seems fairly clear he wised up when it became clear his immigration status was seriously at risk if he continued to associate with them. And lo and behold he arranges a charity event...... It was a good film - but it really revealed how child-like and impressionable John was.