{"id":29267,"date":"2025-04-13T01:32:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T01:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/how-a-new-doc-changes-everything-you-know-about-john-lennon-yoko-ono\/"},"modified":"2025-04-13T01:32:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T01:32:59","slug":"how-a-new-doc-changes-everything-you-know-about-john-lennon-yoko-ono","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/how-a-new-doc-changes-everything-you-know-about-john-lennon-yoko-ono\/","title":{"rendered":"How a New Doc Changes Everything You Know About John Lennon &#038; Yoko Ono"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIn 1972, ABC aired an expos\u00e9 on the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, New York, which had been accused of abusing and neglecting its intellectually challenged wards. A young, hungry investigative reporter named Geraldo Rivera took a camera crew inside the institution, and gave the country a firsthand look at the appalling conditions the underage patients were forced to endure. Thousands upon thousands of viewers reacted with shock, anger and demands for Willowbrook to close its doors forever. Two of them, sitting in a cluttered apartment in Greenwich Village, decided to put on two benefit concerts to help these children out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe resulting double-shot of Madison Square Garden shows that took place August 30th, 1972 \u2014 organized by and featuring recent NYC \u00e9migr\u00e9s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/john-lennon\/\" id=\"auto-tag_john-lennon\" data-tag=\"john-lennon\">John Lennon<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/yoko-ono\/\" id=\"auto-tag_yoko-ono\" data-tag=\"yoko-ono\">Yoko Ono<\/a> \u2014 have become legendary for being the last full live shows that the former Beatle would perform. When ABC broadcast the concert, however, the reaction was mixed;<em> Live in New York City,<\/em> the 1986 album and video release of the event, did little to burnish its reputation. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/sean-lennon\/\" id=\"auto-tag_sean-lennon\" data-tag=\"sean-lennon\">Sean Lennon<\/a> had long wanted to remaster the recordings, knowing that these shows played a huge part in the legacy of his parents. It was also a pivot point in Lennon and Ono\u2019s relationship to both the city they now called home and the political radicalization they\u2019d experienced since moving to downtown New York the previous year. The concert deserved a second chance. And the context leading up to that night in the summer of \u201972 deserved a much deeper look.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tNamed after the benefit shows, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/tv-movies\/tv-movie-reviews\/john-and-yoko-documentary-one-to-one-1235311594\/\">One to One: John &amp; Yoko<\/a><\/em> focuses on the couple\u2019s first few years in NYC, when they moved into a small, one-bedroom apartment at 105 Bank Street, befriended activists such as Jerry Ruben and John Sinclair, spent a lot of time watching TV, and begin figuring out how to live a post-Beatles life. (It opens in a special IMAX run this weekend, before going wide on April 18th.) Directed by Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald \u2014 who\u2019s also made docs on Bob Marley and Whitney Houston \u2014 it utilizes a huge amount of their home movies, personal phone recordings (which a justifiably paranoid Lennon taped because he believed he was being surveilled by the FBI) and a lot of largely unseen archival footage. Macdonald also painstakingly recreated the couple\u2019s Greenwich Village flat, down to the debris strewn out on the floor. If you\u2019ve ever wanted to hang out in a bohemian crash pad in the early \u201970s, or listen in on Lennon arguing with manager Allen Klein about an Attica benefit or the couple\u2019s assistant May Pang negotiate with a fly wrangler for Yoko\u2019s art exhibits, you\u2019ll feel like you\u2019ve gone to Plastic Ono Heaven.<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ editors-pick-module lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tYet the idea, the director says, was not to simply add to the already overflowing Beatles Nonfiction Industrial Complex so much as shed light as what he believes is one of the most crucial, transformative periods of John and Yoko\u2019s life together. \u201cWhy not try to give someone a look back that\u2019s more experiential,\u201d he said, \u201cand let them see what life was like for this couple, in this city, at this time?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tOver the course of two conversations \u2014 one at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/sundance-film-festival\/\" id=\"auto-tag_sundance-film-festival\" data-tag=\"sundance-film-festival\">Sundance Film Festival<\/a> in January, where <em>One to One <\/em>played in the fest\u2019s \u201cSpotlight\u201d section, and one in Los Angeles in February \u2014 Macdonald opened up about why he was initially reluctant to make the movie, how they managed to reconstruct Lennon and Ono\u2019s apartment, the idea that this project is as much about the present as it is the past, and why it helped him see both of these iconic figures in a whole new light. The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"One to One: John &amp; Yoko - Official Trailer | Exclusively in IMAX April 11 | John Lennon, Yoko Ono\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oxagfYjeMV4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You were approached by Mercury Studios with the idea of just doing a concert film, right?<\/strong><br \/>I was actually approached by Peter Worsley, who\u2019s the producer who had spent a long time getting the rights to use the concert. Mercury were already attached at that time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Were they in the process of remastering the audio at that point?<\/strong><br \/>Basically, the order of things is that Sean Lennon wanted to remaster the audio [of the \u201cOne to One\u201d concert], which was terribly recorded. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve seen any of clips of what was originally broadcast; there are a few on YouTube from the videotape release of the show they did in 1986. It was never given a proper re-release or whatever, because the quality wasn\u2019t great and I think the family felt like it wasn\u2019t a fair representation of John. So only in the last few years did they think that, with the current technology and the incredible advances in digital remixing, that they could isolate the different tracks sufficiently enough to do a proper remix of it. My understanding is that he was in the process of remixing the show, and Peter and Mercury said, \u201cOh, we should make a film to put this in its context.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>So like a concert film with benefits?<\/strong><br \/>Something like that. When they came to me, they asked: Do you want to do a film <em>about<\/em> this concert? And I looked at the original footage, and thought, No, this looks and sounds terrible. It wasn\u2019t until they took me to where it was being remixed, and I heard what they were able to do with it, that I was like, Wow. Okay. There\u2019s something here.<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI was nervous about making another John Lennon or Beatles film, to be honest. I was 13 when Lennon died, and I grew up obsessed with him. Admittedly, there was part of me that thought, \u201cOh, it\u2019s my childhood dream, to make a film about John Lennon.\u201d But how do you do something different? There\u2019s just been so much said and done. And then I thought, why not try to give the audience something that isn\u2019t just, \u201cHere are the facts, laid out in front of you. Here are more of the people you\u2019ve seen a million times, if you\u2019re a Lennon fan, talking about these things. Enjoy!\u201d Why not try to give someone a look back that\u2019s bit more experiential, and let them see what life was like for this couple, in this city, at this time?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>The 18 months that you\u2019re concentrating on is really fertile ground, because no one has really dug into that period this intensely before, have they?<\/strong><br \/>It happens to be very fertile if you\u2019re taking the approach that we\u2019ve taken, yeah. When you look at the home movies, the photos, the shards of their shared life that are left behind in the attic \u2014 <em>this<\/em> is the period you want to do it in. Because they had their own cameras. They had their own film crews who often went with them when they were out at protests, or they\u2019re doing the exhibitions. They recorded their phone calls. So this is probably the only period in his life, I think, where there\u2019s enough material that you could pull this approach off.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It fills in the gaps of the traditional narrative, which always felt like: \u201cJohn and Yoko came to New York. There was a lost weekend. He came back. And then they moved into Dakota, John started baking bread\u2026\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\u201cAnd then he was murdered.\u201d Which leaves a <em>lot<\/em> of vital stuff out! That\u2019s what I found so interesting. The more you dig into this period, the more you understand just how transformative this period was for both of them, but <em>especially<\/em> for John. This is when he\u2019s going from being the guy who was a Beatle and is being hounded to death, and whose wife\u2019s is being unfairly blamed for breaking up this band, to being the peacenik John Lennon of the 1970s. This is when he\u2019s trying to figure out: Who am I? How do I reinvent myself? How should I use my power? How should I be relating to Yoko, and women and feminism in general? And because we had access to this great material, it feels intimate in a way that\u2019s unique. I don\u2019t think the world\u2019s biggest Beatles fans will learn loads of new stuff. I just want them to feel like they\u2019ve hung out with John and Yoko.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>How much about this period of John and Yoko\u2019s life did you know going in, or was this a pretty steep learning curve?<\/strong><br \/>It was a steep learning curve because, finally, because\u2026 I was a big fan, but, for instance, I did not know about Kyoko [Ono Cox, Yoko\u2019s daughter]. How is it possible that I\u2019ve read so many books on Lennon, and I did not know this? I\u2019ve been amazed how many real big, nerdy fans didn\u2019t seem to know about her and the struggle John and Yoko went through in relation to her, either. It\u2019s such a defining thing in their lives. It\u2019s one of the main reasons they\u2019ve really come to America \u2014 to look for her. They know that she\u2019s been kidnapped by Yoko\u2019s ex-husband. They\u2019re sending out private detectives. And most importantly, it makes you understand Yoko a lot better. This is a woman who\u2019s actually mourning for the loss of her child, and who, in that beautiful song at the end \u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>The \u201cAge 39\u201d song \u2026 [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NBks7QQhSxQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cLooking Over From My Hotel Window,\u201d<\/a> from Ono\u2019s 1973 album <em>Approximately Infinite Universe<\/em>]<\/strong><br \/>\u2014 She\u2019s s talking about being heartbroken by losing a child, and she\u2019s asking the question, \u201cAm I a bad mother? Was it right that she was taken away from me?\u201d And that makes me care for Yoko and see her in a light that I hadn\u2019t considered before, you know?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>In the film, the moment where you highlight that song comes right after you\u2019ve shown Lennon performing \u201cMother.\u201d It\u2019s almost like the two songs are in conversation with each other.<\/strong><br \/>Well, I think you could argue that the theme of this film \u2014 or one of the themes, in my opinion \u2014 is about children and unhappy childhoods. Lennon has always talked about the fact that his mother was killed had left him with a chip on shoulder, and it\u2019s probably the thing that drove him to be who he is. Not to mention the difficult character that we know he could be! And Yoko is searching for the child she\u2019s lost. So when they both see the Willowbrook footage, and they see those children in pain, that\u2019s why I think that they have this huge outpouring of empathy for them.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((683\/1024)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-515448742.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"683\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"u-border-color-black u-border-lr-2 lrv-u-padding-tb-025 lrv-u-padding-lr-075 lrv-u-border-b-2 lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-text-align-center a-font-basic-secondary-s\">John Lennon and Yoko Ono performing during the \u201cOne to One\u201d concert held at Madison Square Garden in 1972.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Bettmann Archive\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I think Yoko specifically says, when they\u2019re asked why they\u2019re doing this benefit concert for Willowbrook, \u201cAs a mother\u2026\u201d<\/strong><br \/>Yes! And that\u2019s why it seemed appropriate to end it with Sean\u2019s birth at the end. Because it\u2019s kind of like, it\u2019s this moment of completion, in a way. They are ready to devote this energy to being a family. I also find the Willowbrook story is just so incredible. I think some people know about the news report that exposed the conditions there, and Lennon fans know about the concert, but I don\u2019t know that the connection between the two is well-known.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I\u2019m just curious, because <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/feature\/john-lennon-pete-hamill-185277\/\">Lennon\u2019s \u201cLost Weekend\u201d<\/a> has become such a massive part of his history, and feels like a key part of John &amp; Yoko\u2019s story as a couple, why there\u2019s no mention of it at all here, even though you end on their reconciliation and Sean\u2019s birth?<\/strong><br \/>Well, to be honest, it\u2019s less about not wanting to get into that split and more about the structure of the film. Which was: They move into that apartment, they move out of that apartment. I deliberately felt like, I\u2019m not going to bring in stuff from earlier and I\u2019m not going to bring in stuff from later. This is their life in New York; I\u2019m not going to do an extra chapter on him in Los Angeles. I was restricting myself formally. I\u2019m not interviewing anyone. Other than the montages that represent what John and Yoko were watching on TV during that period, I\u2019m not bringing in outside material. It was really, what does this archive tell us about their lives during this concentrated period?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt was also about the recordings and footage I was working with as well. If I had had phone calls of her yelling at him and whatever, I would have put it in. If I had had great material on the Lost Weekend from John and Yoko\u2019s perspective, I probably would have extended the period covered in the film a little bit. I don\u2019t think the estate would have minded, to be honest \u2014 trust me, I\u2019ve had my battles with musical estates before over material. But they were extremely generous and very hands-off overall. It was really down to, John and Yoko move into the into 105 Bank Street in October 1971, they move out in April 1973, and that\u2019s the movie. The only thing I have from after that period is them arriving at the Dakota, it\u2019s half-empty and he\u2019s playing the piano, and that\u2019s the end of the movie. I felt like you needed one small moment of their continuing life in New York after that tumultuous period of them arriving and finding their footing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Did the estate have veto power on stuff?<\/strong><br \/>They gave me access to <em>everything<\/em> they had, so if there was something controversial they had been sitting on and there was some sort of idea that they could say \u201cNo\u201d to stuff later, I wasn\u2019t aware of it. When I told Sean my original idea, his immediate response was: \u201cMy mother would love this idea! Go ahead and do it.\u201d As someone who\u2019s a musician himself and a creative person, he loved the fact that it was playful and creative and not just a document of a performance, or reducing things to \u201cJohn was <em>this,<\/em> Yoko was <em>that.<\/em>\u201d But he did say something interesting to me. After I showed him a cut, he said \u201cThis is the only film I\u2019ve seen that captures who my mother really was.\u201d So that felt good to hear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Let\u2019s talk about recreating the Bank Street apartment, and how you convinced your wife [production designer Tatiana Macdonald] to come out of retirement to do it?<\/strong><br \/>[<em>Laughs<\/em>] She\u2019d retired about three years prior to us starting the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/documentary\/\" id=\"auto-tag_documentary\" data-tag=\"documentary\">documentary<\/a>, and originally, I mentioned this idea to recreate the Bank Street apartment with as much fidelity as we could, and she thought, well, that doesn\u2019t sound like it would be that bad. You know, a couple working on a movie about a couple: \u201cIt\u2019d be nice to work together.\u201d And by the end of it, she was very much like, \u201cYeah, I remember why I retired now.\u201d She said it was the hardest thing she\u2019s ever had to do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I\u2019m impressed that you\u2019re still married.<\/strong><br \/>I am, too. [<em>Laughs<\/em>] The thing is, when you\u2019re making a movie about a fictional pop star of the 1970s, you can decorate that star\u2019s apartment however you want, so long as it\u2019s period accurate. But we got a list of all the books and records and everything that was in their place, because the archive was so well-catalogued. And the actual apartment they lived in was just about to be demolished, plus the insurance rates of getting things over to where we\u2019d built the apartment to exact specifications in England was prohibitively expensive. So we had to rely on a lot of problem-solving. For example, we had that quilt on their bed remade by hand \u2014 the real one still exists, but to get it shipped over from the United Sates was going to cost too much. We managed to get the guitars from collectors in the U.K. We had to go to Poland to find the exact amp Lennon had at the time. We couldn\u2019t find the exact TV they had, so we had to rebuild one from various components.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((683\/1024)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/john-and-yoko-director.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"683\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"u-border-color-black u-border-lr-2 lrv-u-padding-tb-025 lrv-u-padding-lr-075 lrv-u-border-b-2 lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-text-align-center a-font-basic-secondary-s\">Kevin Macdonald, director of \u2018One to One: John &amp; Yoko.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Magnolia Pictures<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>But you had the real blueprint of the apartment and photographs to work from?<\/strong><br \/>Yes, except there actually aren\u2019t a lot of photographs of the apartment itself \u2014 I mean, we probably had every one in existence, but there aren\u2019t <em>that<\/em> many. From what we had, however, we were able to recreate every bit of clutter, from the newspapers stuffed into the end of the bed to everything that\u2019s lying around on the floor. It was a pretty messy place, and I\u2019m awe of the way my wife made you think you were walking into this messy apartment that had been preserved for the last 50 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>There\u2019s also a big emphasis on what John and Yoko were watching on TV during that time frame<\/strong>.<br \/>I just thought, Okay, this is going to be about their experience of America through television. John famously about his love for TV, and how they spent so much of those early years in that apartment taking in this view of America through the lens of TV. Keep in mind that in Britain, you had three channels, and everything switched off at midnight every night. Also, there was virtually no programming on in the afternoon. Then suddenly you\u2019re in a country like this fucking crazy proliferation of 120 channels. My grandparents are American, so I spent a good deal of time in the United States as a kid. And I just would spend my time in front of their television going <em>click click, click,<\/em> and looking at all the different things that were on. I thought with him being British, John obviously felt that same thing. There are lots of photographs of them meeting people in that apartment, everyone\u2019s sitting on that big bed, and the TV is on in the background. So I thought, let\u2019s make that place the center of the film. What\u2019s ironic is that television is partially responsible for them becoming more politicized, as they\u2019re seeing what America is up against, but \u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2014 It\u2019s also responsible for Lennon becoming extremely disillusioned about the idea of a rock star trying to change the world, which you emphasize by putting coverage of Nixon\u2019s election win in 1972 into the movie.<\/strong><br \/>Exactly! The fact that the newscaster is emphasizing not just that Nixon took the popular vote, he had something like 53% of the youth vote \u2014 that gutted Lennon, I think. And it\u2019s so weird how so much of what he\u2019s going through in the film resonates so much with the political situation right now. Isn\u2019t it so weird?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You read a lot about George Wallace\u2019s presidential campaign, but you kind of forget about just how populist his speeches were. And when the footage of them comes up in <em>One to One<\/em> and you hear them now\u2026<\/strong><br \/>They sound <em>very<\/em> familiar, don\u2019t they. This is this sort of history on some sort of rinse and repeat cycle. What\u2019s struck me is that, as we were taking this film around on the festival circuit, a lot of young audiences, a lot of viewers in their teens and early 20s, have really responded to the film. There were post-screening Q&amp;As where they said to me, this feels like this is about <em>our<\/em> world. There was a lot of that, as well: My God, I didn\u2019t know celebrities could be so politically engaged, and actually be on the front line and be at marches, and so on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>The entire idea of the connection between celebrity engagement and activism  \u2014 using fame for \u201cgood\u201d \u2014 is a huge part of the film, right? <\/strong><br \/>Yes. It\u2019s a big part of Lennon\u2019s \u201csecond act,\u201d I guess you\u2019d call it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>After spending years sifting through this material and thinking about Lennon\u2019s political radicalization, do you feel like the relationship between Lennon and Jerry Ruben was totally transactional, or do you feel that\u2019s too simplistic?<\/strong><br \/>That\u2019s now kind of the accepted understanding of their relationship, though, isn\u2019t it? That Ruben was using Lennon, and Lennon\u2019s using him. But Lennon is also quite na\u00efve about so much of what\u2019s happening. I think you really hear that on the recordings of his phone calls with Allen Klein. They become quite hilarious after a while. But I think that John \u2014 throughout his life, but particularly in this period \u2014 is trying to figure out who he is and what do you once you\u2019ve been a Beatle? You know, you\u2019re 31 years old and one of the most famous people in the world. What the hell do you do next? How do you use that? Where do you go from there?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI think he comes to this conclusion that political radicals are the new rock stars, and he\u2019s trying to figure out if Jerry is actually somebody who can teach him about political activism. I think the enthusiasm with which he embraces Ruben and brings him into the band, and when they\u2019re gonna do this whole idea of going on that \u201cFree the People\u201d tour. When he becomes part of the effort to free John Sinclair, he gets a taste of, Oh, maybe we actually can change the world. Then he becomes disillusioned politically, and rejects Jerry over the idea of political violence being some sort of end game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cBut if you talk about destruction, then don\u2019t you know that you can count me out.\u201d<\/strong><br \/>[<em>Laughs<\/em>] It\u2019s right there in the song! We actually toyed with adding \u201cRevolution\u201d into the film at one point, possibly as an end track. I don\u2019t want to say it felt a little too on the nose, but\u2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good call.<\/strong><br \/>When you have access to the full catalogue of Lennon\u2019s music, it\u2019s tempting to put a lot of songs in. There\u2019s a very kid-in-a-candy-store feeling that comes over you. I think the only Beatles track we use is \u201cCome Together,\u201d which makes a lot more sense. And I think in the version we use, he not talking about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/the-beatles\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-beatles\" data-tag=\"the-beatles\">the Beatles<\/a> coming together but about <em>everyone<\/em> coming together to make things work. Getting back to  the disillusionment factor\u2026 yeah, I think John felt that the movement was a failure. And then he eventually figures out that hey, I <em>can<\/em> do something about making the world a better place \u2014 which is, you know, raise money for these kids.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"John Lennon - Come Together (The Beatles Live in New York City)\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xyTirtPJRkE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>The \u201cOne to One\u201d show did a lot to help raise both money and awareness for the institution, correct? Even if Lennon never performed a full solo concert again, he felt like this was both a personal and professional success?<\/strong><br \/>Yeah, it was a success in terms of raising money for the cause. But the reaction threw him a little bit, I think. When the reviews came back after ABC had broadcasted the show, the sort of general feeling was: Why does this look so bad? Why does this sound so muddy? And why the hell isn\u2019t he playing all the Beatles\u2019 tunes?! Those were the measures it was being judged on at the time. Which is insane, because you watch the footage now, and you see that he\u2019s so fucking good onstage up there, and so charismatic and entertaining, you really do think, \u201cWhy the hell didn\u2019t he do this more?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Did you ever come up with an answer for that?<\/strong><br \/>Lennon himself said that he was suffering from stage fright during the show, which is partially why I think he never really did a full concert again. But I also think that when he saw the reviews tearing it apart, he thought, I\u2019m not going to put myself through this if they can\u2019t appreciate what I\u2019m trying to say up there. I will say that this was the one instance in which I seriously considered breaking the rule about not bringing in something from outside of the estate. If I\u2019d found a TV interview where John had discussed his feelings about the show, I would have loved to have used that. We could only find written reviews from the <em>New York Times<\/em> and such, and I didn\u2019t just want to cut to a static headline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Speaking of which: Can you talk a little bit about the way you visualized the phone calls, with that combination of the recordings and text on the screen?<\/strong><br \/>The idea was always that the more textures we have in the film, the better. And I thought that it\u2019s quite nice to take a break from the sort of the mayhem of all the archival stuff. So obviously, the conventional way to do it would be, you\u2019d play those recordings over a clip of period footage, right? But I thought that actually, you want an audience to concentrate on what\u2019s being said and not be distracted. So we kept it simple. Plus there\u2019s enough wit and fun in all that back and forth that the conversations do engage you on their own. Not to mention that you\u2019re eavesdropping on these monumental figures. It\u2019s kind of like, Oh, I\u2019m getting to hear Lennon talk to Allen Klein about organizing a tour or listen in on Yoko\u2019s assistant speaking to a gallery owner about one of her upcoming shows. This is kind of fascinating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You learn so much about flies.<\/strong><br \/>Honestly, there were so many fucking calls about the flies. It went on and on. I\u2019ve just got a tiny proportion of them in there. It\u2019s sort of shaggy dog story, isn\u2019t it? But it totally makes narrative sense.<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules trending-in-article lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Go on.<\/strong><br \/>Well, again, everyone had this idea of who Yoko was or is. But first and foremost, she\u2019s a real artist, who was very well-known in that world before she met John. And she\u2019s the sort of dedicated artist that is totally fixated on something like, \u201cI have this idea, I want to have flies calling over a naked woman,\u201d for whatever reason. What did that mean? I don\u2019t know what it meant. But then why should it mean anything? It\u2019s installation art, isn\u2019t it?! And to hear them debating the logistics of keeping these flies alive is hilarious, but it\u2019s also insightful. This is part of being a conceptual artist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI should say, it took a while to clean up the recordings \u2014 they were old, the quality wasn\u2019t great and because everyone was talking so fast, it made it impossible to hear things clearly. But like I said earlier, it\u2019s amazing what technology can do nowadays, and once we started going through them\u2026 I mean, it\u2019s a gold mine. To hear Yoko talking about what she went through in London, and the way she was treated, it\u2019s like, Well, of course they had to get out of London. Of course they had to come to a place where people weren\u2019t going fixate on them in that way. And that was New York City. That was they actually felt like they could be at home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1972, ABC aired an expos\u00e9 on the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, New York, which had been accused of abusing and neglecting its intellectually challenged wards. A young, hungry investigative reporter named Geraldo Rivera took a camera crew inside the institution, and gave the country a firsthand look at the appalling conditions the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[459],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29267"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshsites.download\/celenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}