Tribute captures intimate moments in life of Lennon

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 29

Tribute captures intimate moments in life of Lennon

Although he was best known as a founding member of perhaps this century’s greatest entertainment phenomenon, John Lennon’s influence today as a musician, artist, writer, philosopher and poet transcends even the awesome celebrity he achieved as one of the Beatles.

That same celebrity Lennon attained, he also disdained. And long after he left the legendary group, he came to know the sad truth: there was no such thing as just being John Lennon, retired Beatle, average citizen. That truth may have cost him his life. Lennon’s tragic death on December 8, 1980, aged 40, stunned the world — and left behind a long and unassailable sorrow. But what John Lennon also left behind was one of the best documented lives of our time: a vast amount of previously unseen film and tape from his collection with Yoko Ono — including newsreels, theatrical films, countless photographs, radio and television interviews.

More than 200 hours of footage have become Lennon’s legacy to both those who grew up with him, as well as to younger genera-

tions who share a spiritual symbiosis with the multitalented artist.

This huge wealth of images and ideas has now been sorted, edited and assembled by the awardwinning film-maker, David L. Wolper, and the noted producer-director of numerous documentaries and rock ’n roll

films, Andrew Solt, into a feature film “Imagine: John Lennon,” which will start at the Avon today.

Wolper said, “In my involvement with producing more than 400 documentaries, never before have I encountered a project where the life of a public personality has been so thoroughly

chronicled on tape and film.”

In Lennon’s kitchen, his own private recording studio, even the intimacy of his and Yoko’s bedroom, the superstar’s life — as a musician, composer, performer, artist, activist, husband and father — comes vividly alive through footage never before seen by an audience.

Rarely, if ever, has the public at large been given the opportunity to view the ’ manner in which a man of Lennon’s far-rang-ing creative skills thinks and lives, to spend time with him in his private moments, then watch him publicly explore the artistic and emotional limits of himself — a man who emerged from a shadowed childhood into the overwhelming light of international celebrity. In a dramatic departure from all previous biographical movies, John Lennon’s life story is narrated entirely by Lennon himself. Within the 200 hours of footage which the Lennon Estate provided to Wolper and Solt were sufficient sound bites of Lennon articulating his thoughts, feelings, and ideas to enable John to tell his own story without need for a narrator.