John & Yoko

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.

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.

Stumbled upon this film and figured it would be a lame re-hash of the previous "Imagine" documentary. To my pleasant surprise, it felt like there was footage I hadn't seen before. I enjoyed pretty much the entirety of it.

This is a portrait of Lennon in transition, newly free from the shackled of then-fraught Beatles. He seems a lot more relaxed and chilled out then just a couple years prior, and it's nice to see.

I appreciated the documentary spending some time crediting Yoko's positive influence (for once) on songs like Imagine and others. Whatever your opinions of the woman is, it can't be denied that we got a huge amount of amazing music from her time as Lennon's muse.

There's a number of talking heads without much interesting things to say. Basically just heaping praise, which dragged the film down a bit I felt. More interesting were the stories from the engineers and other musicians in terms of Lennon's recording process.

All in all, a nice appetizer for the upcoming Peter Jackson helmed Beatles doc of their time recording Let It Be.

Worth a watch.

Well (well well), Lennon is my favourite rock star and "Imagine" is one of my all-time favourite albums so this documentary centring on his recording of that very record was always going to be right down my strasse. Actually taking in his career and activities from a couple of years before, when he first hooked up with Yoko Ono and they formed the Plastic Ono Band, it's a fascinating insight into the man that "Time" magazine voted as one of the men of the decade just past when this was shot.

This was therefore the period when Lennon, soon to up sticks permanently to New York after just a couple of years at the sprawling country grounds of Tittenhurst Park where most of this film was made, was living a gadfly existence as outside of his recording duties we see him out on the road promoting Yoko's book "Grapefruit", following through on his political activism by attending protest marches as well as making himself generally available for interviews with both the music and the popular press, the latter keen to lampoon his peacenik happenings.

The film employs the usual technique of talking head commentaries, some from over-adulatory outsiders and the more interesting ones from those who were either in Lennon's band at the time, like drummer Alan White and bassist Klaus Voormann or were part of his staff. Whilst the film gives almost equal attention to Yoko, there's no question in my mind as to who the real deal is here. Whether expounding his utopian vision for peace on earth, discussing revolutionary politics with Tariq Ali, leading his band through his new songs or most candidly, taking in an obviously damaged Beatles fan who just turns up at his door (and look where that openness to his public led him), he comes across, at least to me, as a sharp, witty, playful guy, one you'd enjoy spending time with. Yes I'm aware of his self-confessed human flaws but even grown up son Julian speaks well of his old man here and that's good enough for me.

The music is absolutely terrific too with snippets of every track from the album heard in one incarnation or another although personally I wish there was more of it shown.

This in summary then is a fine fly-on-the-wall documentary showing a musical giant at his very considerable best.

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.