THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON (2006)
DIRECTED BY DAVID LEAF AND JOHN SCHEINFELD
Flush with all the drama of an illicit affair, John Lennon’s gradual decision to “leave” the Beatles for Yoko Ono remains a major cultural event in American history. With poor Ono still blamed for the dissolution of perhaps pop music’s greatest songwriting team, the political significance of this decision is too often overshadowed – as is
Ono’s role in Lennon’s increased awakening as an activist. A rebel and virtual orphan practically from birth, Lennon had an innate mistrust of authority and a knack for provocation, traits that once filtered through Ono’s gift for performance art, turned them into major figures on the political world stage, equally loved and despised.
The new documentary, The US vs. John Lennon, all too briefly touches on Ono’s influence while, rather unsurprisingly, reinforcing Lennon as the ultimate counterculture icon. Starting with the inception of the Lennon/Ono relationship, the film examines Lennon’s life as a self-consciously political artist whose high profile and very public demonstrations led to an eventual investigation by the Nixon administration, the FBI, and the INS. Co-produced by VH1, this plays like a socially conscious Behind the Music episode (oxymoronic, I know), complete with flashy transitions, interviewees both relevant (Bobby Seale, Tariq Ali, G. Gordon Liddy) and irrelevant (Geraldo Rivera, Ron Kovic), and, thanks to Ono’s involvement, fantastic music. Excepting Liddy, it’s a love-fest from frame one, with everyone chiming in on Lennon’s brilliance while deftly ignoring his infidelity, glibness and Springsteen-esque abuse of the working-class-origins card.
Still, the real prize here is archival footage of Lennon himself, that increasingly rare rock star who, despite his faults, offers an articulate voice for change, and who cuts through the film’s unrepentant asskissing with a genuine sense of focused commitment. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Lennon actually did raise awareness about key issues of the era (especially Vietnam), and his Gandhi-inspired pacifist stance was so noble it looks almost quaint today. As one interviewee comments, Lennon always sacrificed his own image for the greater cause, refusing to bother with what other people thought of him as long as they got the message. Try and imagine greedy Paul McCartney (the George Lucas of music) ever even considering this…
Talented, witty, photogenic, confident, Lennon was in many ways the anti-Nixon, so it’s not terribly shocking to learn how the disgraced president and his cronies put concerted effort into tapping his phones, trailing his car, and eventually starting deportation proceedings.
The U.S. vs. John Lennon is currently playing at Landmark Sunshine Theatre
at 143 E. Houston St.
Comments
To start, I want to sorry about some english errors that may happen here.
But I find myself obliggated to answer this text.
I'm a brazilian 30 years old man. So I don't saw the Beatles playing in their original time.
as I don't saw Pelé playing “futebol” properly. And I always thought
It was a unlucky thing since I was born in the 20th century
and lost those magical guys on their professional top performance.
But despite of all these matters, John Lennon represent for me much
more than a Beatle or a musician in spite of me being myself a musician and by the fact
that I love the Beatles songs and exclusive history.
For me, this documentary and text above, don't go right on target.
It's not the deportation or the anti-nixon thing that is the central matter that must
be touched. But his cold and cruel assassination by a reveange of the north-american
government. That killed for so little reasons. The poor
“Forrest Gump” MArk David Chapman was such a as victm of the
Lennon's killer as John.
And this History is so important to come back to show the intelligent World's
People that there's a lot a similar things happens in these days in America
And in the World.
The war for oil control, the war for a ridiculous power, the surveillances, the tapped
phones, etc.... And if we don't take care. We will all see again
Genius dying and journalists shutted up by “dictatorial forces” those
we can't even see.
The people need to stop to believe on thar naive story about a “deranged fan”
That kills a good and pacifist man.
The people need to start to know that the CIA, the FBI and the american
government in general use and always used illegal methods,
use manipulation of people, lies and is very acostumed to create
conspiracies every now and then.
The american and the world's people need to open the eye
and see in the assassination of Lennon tell us much more than
we want to see. It's a portrait and a echoed of what's happen now
to our world in this beggining of 2007.
See the Lennon's death as lesson that we all must to be taught.
Thanks very much for the space to write.
L. G. Gravas.
Advertising writer at São Paulo, BraSil, with S and
not Z.