The U.S. vs. John Lennon

I saw the trailer for this film awhile back when I was still in America, and I was really interested in seeing it. It was screened at the London Film Festival, but I ended up missing it because I didn't get to the theater in time. It was raining and all that. But I totally lucked out because my friend Magda noticed it was showing at the theater across the street from our hall and that the director was going to be there for a Q&A session. The director turned out to be an American who is in town because last Saturday was the 26th anniversary of John Lennon's death.

The film turned out to be great. It was a good documentary, but it's kind of hard to determine the strengths of the filmmakers just based on this film, however, because the unique thing about this film was the amount of material and access they had. First off, Yoko Ono collaborated with the filmmakers on this project. In light of the current situation, she felt it was time for John Lennon's story to be told. Yoko is somewhat notorious for the hold she has on John Lennon's legacy, especially post-Beatles, but she gave David Leaf and his co-director an unprecendented amount of access into John Lennon's and her life. From what I've read about this film, the critics were wary because they felt as a result the story would be biased.

Prior to watching this, I didn't know much about John Lennon. He's of my parents' generation. Of course I know who the Beatles are and I know their hit songs because they have resonated through time, and I know that John Lennon was important because people still mourn his death and my parents really liked him and all that. But I never really understood why this British dude was upheld to be so important in America. This film shows that he was important though. He wasn't just a musician, but a revolutionary who people listened to. Yeah, we have celebrities standing up in current day like Bono and the Dixie Chicks, but not to the level of John Lennon where they are a perceived threat to the U.S. government...or perhaps the FBI is collecting information on Natalie Maines as we speak?

The other thing is seeing the footage of the protests during the Vietnam War. It makes me sad. Why aren't we, this current generation, marching up the Mall in a huge flood of protesters against this current war? I asked the director this, and he thinks it's because this war is under such different circumstances. There is a lot of truth in that, but it still makes me wish my generation had the fervor of that time. I started at Berkeley in August 2001, just a couple weeks before 9/11, so I was on the lookout for the next anti-war protests. Berkeley was so instrumental in the 60's and 70's against Vietnam. Our first day of sociology class that following spring, our professor started the class by showing Berkeley during Vietnam and all the crazy protests that had happened on our campus. We all saw that and we were all so inspired, yet it never happened. Yeah, there were anti-war protests at Berkeley. But it almost seemed forced. Like we were only demonstrating because we're Berkeley students and we were expected to because of the legacy left by those in the 60's and 70's. That raw passion of students being crushed by police yet continuing because they genuinely believed in the struggle...it just wasn't there. Yet I understand that it's a very different war. Half the country supports it and the other half doesn't. The country was physically and brutally attacked on 9/11 and while that really had nothing to do with Iraq, I understand it's hard to distance the two for some.

Living in anti-Bush London hasn't made me more liberal. Ironically, it's made me empathize more with the other half. People here are so far from the other side. They look at America and hate Bush and are anti-war and think we're crazy for re-electing him. It's kind of the opposite of what I felt in American being a liberal while I had friends packing up to go to Iraq and had a mother praying for Bush to prevail in Iraq. Don't get me wrong. I am still far from voting Republican or supporting the war. But my perspectives have changed on looking at the people on the homefront.

David Leaf (the director) told me that now's the time to go back to America, but I disagree. This experience of being in another fish bowl from my own has been mind opening. I've made the opposite journey from John Lennon going from America to England rather than England to America, but if I may be so arrogant, I'm learning a lot of the same things he must have.

Also, the director told me that this film will be playing in the States on VH1 so keep your eyes open for it. Knowing VH1, it'll probably play OVER and OVER and OVER again so it probably won't be that hard.

http://www.vh1.com/movies/movie/284644/trailers.jhtml
www.theusversusjohnlennon.com