The next film in my Netflix queue was a documentary I had heard only a little about, but the subject matter immediately appealed to me, and I knew I just had to watch it. This movie was also on my 2006 Movies I'm Dying to See Spout list and happens to be the last of those I've come around to viewing. If you haven't ascertained, through either previous blog entries or conversations in various groups, that of all my fanatic obsessions, the greatest one, even greater than Star Wars and Harry Potter, is my obsession with the Beatles. I consider myself something of an expert on the Fab Four and all of their trials and tribulations, even though I wasn't alive during their heydey. I've always liked their music, but in high school, when it suddenly became "ok" or even "cool" to admit any affinity for a band that my parents listened to, I started to become more than simply interested in the Lads from Liverpool. Not only did I collect all of their albums, I started to read books and watch films centered on the four, and I eventually traveled to important London Beatles landmarks and to Liverpool. I think their lives are fascinating, to be honest with you. It's highly impressive, and quite the real-life fairy story, to learn about how four working class almost-Baby Boomers became the greatest rock n roll band the world has ever known. It's also fascinating to learn of their creative genius, the inspirations behind their music, and their personal motivations for where they were, where they went, and where they ended up.
I think it is without doubt that, perhaps, the most interesting member of the band, at least in terms of the public life he lead, and the politics he espoused, was John Lennon. The other three Beatles made their own mark in their own place and time, but John and second wife Yoko Ono really spearheaded a movement and carved out a public identity and persona completely opposite from mop tops and Twist and Shout, moreso than Paul, George, or Ringo. It's from this vantage point that this documentary begins.
The US Versus John Lennon maps out how John, despite his genius and his passion for art, peace, and humanity, was regarded as a national threat to the repressive American politics of the time, which prompted members of the Nixon administration, the figureheads of this repression, to try to deport him. The film begins in 1966, when John shocked our conservative little nation by comparing the Beatles (though highly indirectly) to Jesus Christ, which led to a boycott of Beatles records. The documentary then tries to convince the viewer of the power of John's celebrity, intellect, and message, demonstrating the shifts in the Beatles' music before their breakup, his marriage to Yoko (who was already a highly vocal member of the artistic community), their collective staged protests such as Bagism and their Bed-Ins, and their move to the US and to New York City, when they were exposed to several radical activists. Given this background, the viewer is then given insight into the deportation process John and Yoko underwent, largely at the behest of several high-ranking Nixon administration officials, including J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon himself.
As a self-proclaimed Beatles expert, I can tell you that the trick to making a documentary about any or all four of the Beatles is how the filmmaker presents the information as new and fresh. In fact, any individual with any iota or modicum of interest in the Beatles, or Lennon, or John and Yoko can find information about them with a mere click on the internet or trip to the library or bookstore. In addition, there have been several exhaustive documentaries already made about John Lennon, including a far more comprehensive, and, perhaps, better presented, film, Imagine: John Lennon, which covers all of what is addressed in this film.
As such, in watching the US Versus John Lennon, I wasn't really told anything new. Being so interested in the Beatles, I've already been exposed to the information presented here, from beginning to end.
The documentary does have its bright points and pieces or elements that set it apart from other documentaries, including other documentaries about John Lennon or the Beatles in general. First, it happens to assemble a great number of commentators who, at least that I can recall, have not really ever been assembled for such a project. There were journalists who reported on and/or interviewed Lennon and Ono, including Walter Cronkhite (who I was not even aware was still alive). Most of the 60s radical activists whom John and Yoko befriended were also interviewed, including John Sinclair and Bobby Seale, one of the founders of the Black Panthers. Also, Yoko contributed several personal impressoins of what it was like to be public figures that the United States government found to be such subversive threats to the national policy of war and fear.
In fact, this documentary is at its best when it gives the intimate impressions of John and Yoko about all that they did, in terms of how they felt, and the fear they experienced, despite their conscious decisions to make public, sometimes critical, statements about the US's Vietnam policies. No film has ever really presented the "down side" of peaceful protest as facilitated by John and Yoko as this film has. The only piece of earth-shattering information was the number of documents the film and its sources presented showing the extent to which the Nixon administration monitored John and Yoko's activities, including widespread wiretapping and FBI tails.
Yet, the film fails to present anything truly new or make any kind of argument to which fans and admirers worldwide don't already subscribe. Everyone is aware of the oppressive politics of the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration, and everyone is aware that the government tried to deport John for being so vocal. In fact, the film's primary subject, of just how far-reaching and influential John's celebrity was, is not fast-breaking news.
I don't rate documentaries with my patented, registered, trademarked ratings scale because they are not about entertainment as much as they are about education. I can say that I did not find this documentary as specifically as educational as others; however, if there are viewers new to the Beatles or the individual members' life and times, this would probably be a great film to watch to gain deeper insight into the relationship between John and Yoko and their artistry, passion, and politics as well as the historical context in which they lived and transmitted their message of love and peace. Still, I think if anyone is interested in a documentary about John Lennon or any of the above, I would recommend Imagine: John Lennon, which is probably ten years old or so, but the information is still the same. For that reason, I don't think this movie passes my test (which documentaries are still subject to). I would rather own the other one, though I don't really need to own any of them, since I have books which touch the same subjects.
As an interesting footnote, I did notice many parallels between the politics of the Nixon administration and the politics of the Bush administration. I don't think the film was aiming to draw those parallels, at least not overtly, but it is interesting to wonder, if John were alive today, how he would regard the current political climate, and whether he would be content to stay silent (he would have been 67 this year) and what would have happened if he and Yoko were as vocal as they were in the late 60s and early 70s. Something to "imagine," don't you think?