John Lennon knew that vigorous political activism in the 1970s was a risky business – and eight years before his tragic murder, he talked to a friend about the risks of gun violence.
New documentary One on One: John & Yoko focuses on Lennon and wife Yoko Ono’s move to New York amid a tense American political climate in 1971. Much of the opening covers the ill-fated Free the People Tour, which Lennon planned with activist Jerry Rubin as a mix of music and politics.
The tour was to end at the Republican convention in August 1972, and Lennon’s goal was to raise money to pay bail for people who could not afford it themselves.
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In a documentary scene that is terrifying in hindsight, Lennon talks to drummer Jim Keltner on the phone about the tour, and the “Imagine” singer is asked if there was “any paranoia” about the people going on it.
“What kind of people?.. You mean people who try to kill us or something like that? I will not shoot myself,” he says in the archive footage. “He will cause excitement in his own way. But, you know, I’m still an artist, but a revolutionary artist, right?”
He later admitted to a reporter that he felt a sense of paranoia, and began recording his own phone conversations.
“We started noticing people hanging out in front of the apartment. And I have a driver, he is a former policeman. But this car is following us all the time,” he said in a conversation broadcast in the documentary. “So we’re all very nervous.”
The former Beatle was infamously murdered outside his apartment in Dakota, New York in December 1980, aged 40.
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Yoko Ono and John Lennon in December 1968. Susan Wood/Getty
Eventually, the Free the People tour was cut short, and Lennon and Ono’s relationship with Rubin deteriorated “due to the risk of a violent confrontation at the Republican convention,” according to the doc.
The documentary, which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival, combines interviews and phone calls with concert footage and historical videos, such as President Richard Nixon’s speech and the assassination attempt on Governor George Wallace.
The never-before-seen footage, which includes home movies of Lennon and Ono with their son Sean, shows a rare side of the music legend, one with his guard completely down as he talks to those who know him best.
The documentary culminates in the 1972 One to One benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, the only full-length performance Lennon ever did after the 1970 breakup of the Beatles.
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Source: HIS Education