John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky

Since 1972 roughly every 10-15 years the footage collected from the Imagine album recording sessions is repackaged into a new film/documentary. So you will watch the same scenes in either:

Imagine (1972) - the original film, mostly cheesy a music special Imagine: John Lennon (1988) - a more expansive look into John's life Gimme Some Truth (2000) - more focused on the recording sessions Above Us Only The Sky (2018) - the most recent repackaging

It seems redundant to watch them all but all of them have different goals. I found Gimme Some Truth the most enjoyable because the footage itself tells the history and the focus is the music.

Above Us Only The Sky in other hand feels MORE LIKE a PR piece with the function of maintaining the Lennon's image of a pacifist and raising Yoko's profile. Not a bad documentary but too thin. It features some forgettable present day interviews with people involved with Lennon at the time. The most noteworthy appearance is of Julian Lennon, often at odds with Yoko.

Not different by many other biographic films, it is the portrait of the genesis of an emblematic song. Seductive for confessions and pieces of real life and seductive for the grace to define a time, for generosity of Yoko Ono Lennon and for the wise footage, it represents a remember and inspired definition of the art and its seed - the relation between so special people.

A similar look at John Lennon and Yoko in life and work a year or so after the Jan 69 events of the latest film. The Beatles have broken up, John is cleaned up, happy and Yoko as the muse leads to the Imagine album. Once again the creative process is Lennon on a piano with an assortment of session musicians following along, including George. Some insight into the bitterness with Paul and the move to New York. Also a fair look at Yoko and her own history as an artist. A more traditional rockumentary with the people who were there adding context 47 years later.

Your enjoyment on documentaries about artists often depend on how much you like the artists. If you're a huge fan of John Lennon you're gonna love the insight this doc brings into the making of Imagine, if you don't like either John or Yoko you'll find more reasons to hate them. I'm a bit indifferent and thought it was quite informative and enjoyed it for the insight into the mind of one of music's biggest influences.

I was amazed at the unseen footage. It was well edited and thoughtfully done, with interviews of people telling nuggets of details about the album. He was an incredible human being - and his message is needed even more now with the problems we're facing across the globe.