John Lenno: “One to One”

                                                        John Lennon: “One to One” Documentary

 

It opens with Lennon on stage in New York singing to rapturous response from the young, hippy-ish looking audience.

I was contemporary to them, back in the student early 70s. I remember blasting my residence block with the distorted bass of my clunky stereo:”All we are saying, is give peace a chance”.. thump, thump.

Yes, well: the naivety that characterises both song and student stereo owner comes across persistently in the film. Lennon was then in early 30s, a huge Beatles star of course. But he and Yoko Ono had fled Britain, hounded by the accusations against Yoko of Beatles-breaking. Yoko, whatever you might think of her artistic projects (not much in my case) is a woman of dignity and undeserved suffering.

 Initially they took a simple small apartment. Lennon says in the film that it is a relief to go back to unpretentious lodgings. It makes him feel an ordinary young man once more.

But neither he nor Yoko can ever be ordinary again. They are taken up (or in) by political pranksters such as Jerry Rubin (the yippie) and Alan Ginsberg, and co-opted into various political-music stunts.

Lennon both shuns and exploits his fame. At point he sketches a series of bail busting concerts. The proceeds would pay the bail of local imprisoned activists. But he avoided the big and violent political confrontations of election year 1972.

The film shows, for us viewing now, grim political previews: Nixon rallies- MAGA lite; those of George Wallace, the racist governor of Mississippi, MAGA plus. There’s shocking film of Wallace being shot. Like Trump, he survived.

Lennon is portrayed as sincere and benevolent , but out of his depth those dangerous and polarised times, which turned brutal and occasionally lethal (Kent State student shootings, Attica prison riots).

The film is not exactly a documentary. It’s a compilation of historical footage – of John and Yoko of course, but equally of contemporary images from news footage and crass advertising – immersing the viewer in the USA of early 70s.

The “One to One” concert opens the film and frames the narrative. Only towards the end is the viewer made aware of the cause of the event.

A TV journalist had investigated the conditions of an institution for very severely disabled children. The conditions were disgusting, inhumane (this is shown in contemporary footage).

John and Yoko saw the report, and used their star power to raise money for the children through the concert. One moving result, which we see, is a big fair put on for the children in Central Park.

A real achievement indeed, compared to attempts to levitate the Pentagon with Ginsberg et al.

April 2025