In case someone, overcome with exhaustion by the absurdity of a bitterly politically divided America, should forget the absolute craziness of the 1970’s when Nixon, George Wallace and the Vietnam war were on one side and Jerry Rubin and Allen Ginsberg, violent student riots and dope-smoking love-ins on the other, One to One: John & Yoko is here to refresh your memory. It is a smart and warm-hearted documentary that never tries to separate the superstar at its center from the political and cultural context, or to split John from the woman he loved and admired — and never deliberately cast shade on.
It is also one of the finest portraits of these artists on film, and a creative leap forward for eclectic documentarist Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, Marley) and co-director and editor Sam Rice-Edwards. Structured very loosely around the couple’s move to New York City in late 1971 after the Beatles’ break-up, and their increasing radicalization as they came into contact with Greenwich Village revolutionaries and 24-hour American television, the barrage of images is at first a challenge to absorb. There is a moment when, swept up in the ripping rhythms of John’s solo pieces on stage, a kinky musical biography seems in the offing. But as this intimate profile of Lennon and Ono slowly comes into focus, the blizzard of Rice-Edwards’ editing goes ever deeper into their ideas, motives and goals in a unique piece of portraiture.
The story is told through archive material that runs from concerts to home videos, even black-screen phone calls (many droll and very funny) that John seems to have taped for himself when he realized his phone was bugged. Other info is provided on TV talk shows, where John demonstrates a disarming naturalness discussing how he was abandoned by his parents (he was raised by an aunt) and his inner search to leave neurosis behind and find out who he really is.
It was at Yoko’s urging that John decided to leave his English country house at Ascot and exchange it for a two-room apartment in the Village, a space dominated by their famous, oft-photographed bed and a TV set that is never turned off. Channel surfing at high speed fills the screen with grim ironic humor. Richard Nixon dances with his wife while Watergate seems to have been forgotten. The Republican National Convention unfolds amid the threat of violent rioting. Thousands of politicized students meet to end the war in Vietnam and free political prisoners like John Sinclair, sentenced to ten years in jail for possession of marijuana.
Poet Allen Ginsberg reads a hilariously scatological poem on TV. Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, addresses racial tensions after the inflammatory former governor of Alabama, George Wallace, is shot and almost killed. John gets anti-war leader and social activist Jerry Rubin on national TV to air his views, much against the host’s wishes. Above all the white noise and conflicting voices, Lennon’s own clear words can be heard repeating, “We can do something,” a positive mantra aimed at shaking young people out of their apathy and raising their voices to end the war.
After John and Yoko watch a shocking news report on the inhuman conditions at the Willowbrook Institution, home to 5,300 patients with severe mental disabilities, the idea of the One to One charity concert is born. Many of the residents are kids, and Lennon calls children “symbols of all the pain on earth”. The concert comes off and provides the film’s most emotional moment, when John sings “Imagine” on stage. It is a revealing context for a song that could be heard as sentimental, but here is grounded in a real change for the better for the young patients.
The final scenes underline Yoko Ono’s personal trajectory with her speech at the First International Feminist Conference at Harvard in 1973, and her moving revelation of loneliness and self-doubt singing “Age 39”. Her agonized search for her estranged daughter Kyoko is ongoing as the film draws to a sinister close, amid growing violence in America. Macdonald and Rice-Edwards make the wise choice to keep the ending upbeat, letting their portrait of John and Yoko as revolutionary artists with a mission speak for itself. The One to One concert was Lennon’s only full-length concert between the final Beatles concert in 1966 and his death. Restored and remastered footage from the event appears with remixed audio overseen by Sean Ono Lennon.
Directors, screenplay: Kevin Macdonald, Sam Rice-Edwards
With: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Rubin
Producers: Peter Worsley, Kevin Macdonald, Alice Webb
Cinematography: David Katznelson
Editing: Sam Rice-Edwards
Production design: Kevin Timon Hill
Music: John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Sound: Glenn Freemantle
Remastered audio remix: Sean Ono Lennon
Production companies: Plan B/Km Films, Mercury Studios
World Sales: Cinetic Media
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition)
In English
100 minutes
