Documentary to follow the years 1971 to 1973, one of the most polarized periods of one of the most controversial couples in pop culture
A presidential candidate who appeals to the dissatisfaction of the white population is almost murdered. A black woman applied for presidency. A great threat of deportation hangs in the air. People go to the streets to protest against bombing and genocide. These events very much resemble modern days. But, in fact, they are part of the post-Woodstock world of the early 1970s portrayed in One to One: John & Yoko
Directed by Kevin MacDonaldthe documentary dares to follow one of the most polarized periods of one of the most controversial couples in pop culture. It’s the kind of movie you thought you didn’t want, but it turns out to be one of the few recent products from Beatles that you really need.
In recent years, we have been flooded by this kind of band content, some of them memorable, some dispensable. One to One It is not as revealing as GET BACK (2021), the masterpiece of Peter Jackson About album recording Let it bebut serves as a kind of sequence. Covering the years 1971 to 1973, it is a cinematic roller coaster over the period when Lennon and Ono They left England to live in the center of New York, exchanging a luxurious property for an apartment in West Village.
The legal separation of Beatles I had just started, and Lennon He is heard by one of the many telephone recordings of the movie: “I want to be me now.” It was in the New York of the early 1970s where he wanted to flourish. Starting with a recreation of the cozy and somewhat messy apartment of Lennon and Onowhich looks like a home of college colleagues sloppy than one of the most famous musicians in the world, One to One It is a window for chaotic mixing between rock fame, radical politics and counterculture art.
The couple had experienced this confluence while still in England, scraping their hair in 1970 and donating the strands to an auction for the benefit of a house for children with disabilities. But they dived headlong into this life during their time in Greenwich Village. The artistic fruits of this period – the irregular and proudly aggressive album Sometime in New York City – They were not very tasty. But the scenario that unfolded around it is more fun than the song they did at that time.
Through recordings of interviews and telephone calls (made by Lennon concerned with being harassed by the FBI, the immigration department or both), One to One gives us a unique view of the postBeatles of John and Yoko.
They may be living in an ordinary apartment with a television placed just beyond the bed of the bed so they don’t have to get up to watch it, but they are still rock stars, whims and their own complaints and a sense of obligation.
In a call, Ono complains to a friend who Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr They continue to avoid giving her any recognition (“This is machismo!”). Other calls are hilarious, such as when the quarrelsome Allen Klein Try to convince Lennon not to sing a new song, “Attica” (About the famous riot in prison), in a charity event for the activist John Sinclairinstead of one of its successes.
In a kind of recurring joke, Ono It is heard calling associates and demanding that they gather thousands of living flies for an exhibition in the gallery. These workers, including May pangfuture girlfriend of Lennonthey are listened to to find insects in time of the inauguration. (Spoiler Alert: They can, and we see the results.) An entire movie of these recorded conversations would be an incredible exhibition of performic art by itself.
Yes, there is also music. One to One receives its title of a rare concert that Lennon, Ono and your support band Elephant’s Memory played in New York in 1972. The show was a charity event for Willowbrooka home for children and adults with disabilities. Most live filming had appeared before on the posthumous album Live in New York City and in home videos in the 1980s. but review the last complete concert of Lennon In the big screen is another completely different experience.
Accompanying the musician, the Elephant’s Memory It sounds stronger and cooled than its legend suggests. In the close -ups of Lennon by the piano singing “Mother”each line of the song about his deceased mother seems to hit him stronger than the previous one. This song and a fierce version of “Come Together” make you realize what tragedy was the fact that JohnUnlike the others of FAB FOUR, never made a complete solo tour during your lifetime.
But One to One It’s both about your moment in history and about John and Yoko. Imitating the bombing of TV news that Lennon and Ono They watched incessantly, MacDonald alternates the couple’s life line with news images (the shooting of the governor of Alabama and segregationist George Wallace during a presidential electoral stop; The Democratic Congressman Shirley Chisholm Making history as the first black woman to look for her party’s presidential nomination) and often sexist surface commercials for cleaning products and cars.
The dream of idealism of the 1960s is over: how Ono He tells a friend on a call: “The power of flowers didn’t work, but so – we’re starting again.” But it’s a flawed restart, for sure. We hear as they ask for Lennon participate in all kinds of charitable concerts, and he and Ono start to live with a rebel crowd that includes David Peel and Jerry Rubinco-founder of the International Youth Party, whose love for the stage rivals with any rocker in arenas.
In 1972, Lennon and Rubin They have an idea for a tour in which ticket sales would be intended for the payment of unjustly imprisoned political prisoners. The idea is both generous and crazy half; We hear when they can almost convince Bob Dylan to participate (through intermediaries; Dylan personally). Ono League to the notorium AJ Weberman – seen by turning trash cans in front of the musician’s apartment – to ask him to take time and stop leaving Dylan scared. He agrees, but at the end Dylan gives up and the whole tour collapses.
Not much after this fiasco, Lennon and Ono Go to the Dakota building in Manhattan. The moving from dirty part of the center to a more stylish part now seems doubly symbolic. Even they look tired of this revolutionary joke with smaller and smaller returns. And given the overwhelming electoral result favorable to Richard Nixon In 1972, who can blame them?
The movie has a happy ending, so to speak: Lennon Overcomes an attempt from the team Nixon To deport it, and the baby Sean Soon it enters the couple’s life. But a frightening tip on the future comes when Lennon is talking to the drummer Jim Keltner About concerns related to that aborted bail money tour: “Do you mean people trying to kill us or something?” it says. “I’m not willing to make me take it.”
We all know what came soon after that; First for the musician and now for the country. But even in its craziest or paranoid moments, John Lennon Probably never totally imagined that 1972 US would anticipate the country more than 50 years later.
Article published on April 11, 2025 at Rolling Stone. To read the original in English, click here.
+++ Read more: Yoko Ono revisits relationship with John Lennon in new documentary: ‘They wanted my death’
+++ Read more: Sean Ono Lennon defends John’s love for Yoko on the 1973 Mind Games album
+++ Read more: Yoko Ono ‘never overcame’ relationship with John Lennon, says son
Source: Rollingstone
Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.
