A war that no one knows how to stop is raging, and protests are erupting on college campuses and at the White House. People with disabilities are neglected due to lack of funding and ill-equipped resources. Activists are arrested on trumped-up charges. A black woman runs for president. A politician is shot dead in front of his supporters.
And in the early 1970s, two of the world’s most famous musicians learned a lot about this music from television in a cozy two-bedroom love nest in New York City’s West Village.
Documentary maker Kevin MacDonald wanted to make a film about John Lennon’s 1972 benefit concert for mentally retarded children, One to One. The late Beatle’s estate then discovered audio recordings made while he and his wife Yoko Ono were worried that their phones were being tapped. Suddenly, McDonald saw from the inside not only this relationship, but also how the couple reacted to news and information about what was happening in the world.
“One to One: John & Yoko” will premiere on HBO on November 14th after a theatrical and festival run. The appeal, McDonald says, is not just the access to two of the most publicized figures of the 20th century. Rather, it is a sociological and historical time capsule.
“This film is about John and Yoko and the concert, but it’s also about an era, and it’s trying to immerse you in a different[era]and evoke that era in a different way than previous documentaries,” McDonald says. His unscripted credits include a 2018 documentary about musician Whitney Houston and a 2023 film about fashion designer John Galliano.
It’s not hard to find parallels with today.
“If you look at what’s happening on TV during this time and in America (now) and the conversations about race and the conversations about feminism, it’s the exact same thing,” McDonald says.
MacDonald said he made the rule to include archival material from this era because he had access to private footage and a lot of material from Lennon’s frequent and very outspoken appearances on TV talk shows. There is no speaker or additional context. At the same moment that viewers marvel at how MacDonald and his wife, stage decorator Tatiana MacDonald, have meticulously recreated Lennon and Ono’s apartment, down to the Peanuts pillowcase, they can also look up John Sinclair, the poet who helped Lennon get free from drug charges.
It also shows that celebrities becoming “woke” to a cause is not a 21st century phenomenon. John Lennon, who grew up in a broken family with little connection to world politics, sympathizes when he is contacted by the Irish Liberation Army and wants to organize a concert tour to raise bail money for its members. Although Ono grew up in a much more cultured environment, he is more anxious about participating in any protests and agreeing to support any cause.
“There are a lot of people who have things they don’t like about John Lennon, but what I admire about him is that he’s a man who embraces change and tries to change himself and improve his life,” McDonald says.
This movie also proves Ono’s legitimacy to some extent. In one of the discovered recordings, she talks about being forever blamed for breaking up the Beatles. Viewers will also see her speak candidly about her marriage in the spotlight at a feminist conference, and hear her internal anguish over the abduction of her child from a previous relationship.
“For me, the central theme[of the film]is childhood and the pain that lingers from childhood into adulthood,” McDonald says.
Lennon’s estate did not object much to its inclusion, perhaps because the footage is archival (Ono and Lennon’s son, Sean Lennon, are executive producers). Sean Lennon disputed that the Greenwich apartment building would be demolished. He suggested a baby video as a more upbeat conclusion.
He’s right. Cute baby videos never go out of style.
