The U.S. vs John Lennon
Written and directed by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld.
Starring John Lennon and Yoko Ono Lennon
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~ Yoko Ono~ An increasingly unpopular war and a restive public … A presidential administration engaged in secret surveillance and wiretapping… A world-famous musician who speaks out in protest … and comes under fire Get Back Jo Jo
PURCHASE: The U.S. vs. John LennonBefore Iraq, before the Bush Administration, before the Dixie Chicks, Bruce Springsteen, and Pearl Jam … there was John Lennon, the celebrated musical artist who used his fame and his fortune to protest the Vietnam War and advocate for world peace. In the new Lionsgate and VH1 documentary, THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON, filmmakers David Leaf and John Scheinfeld trace Lennon’s metamorphosis from lovable “Moptop” to anti-war activist to inspirational icon as they reveal the true story of how and why the U.S. government tried to silence him. Primarily focusing on the decade from 1966-1976, THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON places Lennon’s activism - and the socio-political upheaval it represented - in the context of the times. It was one of the most fractious periods of American history, dominated by the Vietnam War; the rise of antiwar, civil rights, New Left and other political movements challenging the status quo; the Nixon presidency; revelations of government deception, surveillance and harassment; and Watergate. The film features a large and diverse array of the era’s notable figures, men and women who bear immediate and authoritative witness to specific events as well as to the prevailing climate. Among them: African-American political activists Angela Davis and Bobby Seale; journalists Carl Bernstein and Walter Cronkite; Nixon Administration officials G. Gordon Liddy and John Dean; Vietnam veteran and antiwar activist Ron Kovic; the eminent American historian/novelist Gore Vidal; former New York Governor Mario Cuomo; and three-term Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern. But it is John Lennon himself who is the documentary’s preeminent voice and galvanizing central presence. With Lennon’s own music providing subtly incisive narration, the film captures a public and private Lennon that many viewers may not know: a principled, funny, and extraordinarily charismatic young man who refused to be silent in the face of injustice. Yoko Ono, Lennon’s wife, creative collaborator and partner in their campaign for peace, has given the filmmakers unprecedented access to the Lennon-Ono archives, enabling them to draw upon never-before seen or heard audiovisual materials in telling their story. And in a series of in-depth interviews, Ono shares her personal memories, evoking as no one else can the realities of the couple’s daily lives; their hopes and happiness; and their long ordeal at the hands of the U.S. government. Scrupulously researched and vividly illustrated, THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON illuminates a little-known chapter of modern history, when a president and his administration used the machinery of government to wage a covert war against the world’s most popular musician. Exploring an era roiled by many of the same issues confronting us today, THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON delivers a tale that speaks powerfully to our own unsettled times. THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON is produced, directed and written by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld. Executive producers Kevin Beggs, Sandra Stern, Tom Ortenberg, Nick Meyer, Steve Rothenberg, Erik Nelson, Michael Hirschorn, Brad Abramson, and Lauren Lazin. JOHN LENNON TIMELINE OF RELEVANT EVENTS
John Lennon Framed Memorabilia Buy at AllPosters.com February 9, 1964 - The Beatles make their first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” August 7, 1964 – At the request of the Johnson administration, Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing U.S. armed forces to repel armed attacks. Based on the Johnson’s administration’s claim that North Vietnamese soldiers had attacked a U.S. gunboat – a claim that has largely been discredited - the Resolution effectively allows the U.S. to send forces to Vietnam. April 17, 1965 – 25,000 people participate in an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Washington D.C., the largest antiwar protest the capitol had yet seen. July 28, 1965 – President Lyndon Johnson announces plans to send 44 more battalions to Vietnam, increasing the number of military personnel to 125,000. Monthly draft call-ups are doubled. October 1966 –Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale found the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, CA. Founded on principles of black nationalism and self-determination, the party goes on to work with an array of leftist groups, including the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Youth International Party (Yippies), the Puerto Rican Young Lords of New York, and the Peace and Freedom Party of California. June 1, 1967 – Vietnam veteran Jan Crumb and six fellow veterans found the antiwar group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. October 22, 1967 – Over 100,000 people participate in the March on the Pentagon to demand an end to the Vietnam War. Among them are future Yippies Abbie Hoffman, Stew Albert and Jerry Rubin, who introduce some humor to the earnest gathering with an absurdist attempt to levitate the Pentagon. December 31, 1967 – Paul Krassner comes up with a name for the merry band of political provocateurs consisting of himself, Abbie Hoffman, Anita Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Stew Albert, among others: the Yippies. Anita Hoffman suggests an official-sounding name for the group: the Youth International Party. January 30, 1968 – North Vietnam launches the Tet Offensive, targeting cities held by the U.S. and South Vietnam. March 31, 1968 – President Lyndon Johnson, his popularity faltering due to the Vietnam War, announces he will not seek re-election. August 28, 1968 – Violence erupts at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as police attack antiwar demonstrators, bystanders and news reporters in full view of national news cameras. November 5, 1968 – Former Vice President Richard Nixon is elected president, narrowly defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. March 20, 1969 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono are married in Gibraltar. November 12, 1969 – Investigative reporter Seymour Hersch publishes the first newspaper story about the March 1968 My Lai Massacre, during which an Army infantry murdered approximately 500 South Vietnamese civilians, mostly women, children, babies and the elderly. Support for the war erodes even further. November 15, 1969 – Between 250,000-600,000 protestors participate in the Washington “Moratorium,” the largest single antiwar demonstration in U.S. history. May 4, 1970 – Four college students are gunned down and nine others are wounded by the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State University campus. The students were demonstrating against the American invasion of Cambodia which President Richard Nixon launched on April 25, and announced in a television address five days later. June 13, 1971 – The New York Times begins publishing excerpts from the “Pentagon Papers,” the top-secret 47-volume government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam commissioned by Robert McNamara in 1967 and completed in 1969. The excerpts, which exposed deceptive practices by the government, increase public anger about the war. President Nixon’s Justice Department seeks a court injunction to prevent further publication, a move that is ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court. June 17, 1972 – Five men are arrested at the office complex of the Watergate Hotel for attempting to break into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. The burglary is later traced back to the Nixon White House and the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), revealing a scheme to sabotage the Democratic presidential campaign. November 7, 1972 – President Nixon is reelected to a second term, defeating Democratic nominee George McGovern in a landslide. January 27, 1973 – The Paris Peace Accords are signed, clearing the way for U.S. military forces to leave Vietnam. May 17, 1973 – The Senate Watergate Committee convenes its investigation into the Watergate break-in and the ensuing cover-up. The hearings are televised through August 7th. July 27, 1974 – Congress recommends the first of three articles of impeachment, for obstruction of justice, against President Nixon. August 8, 1974 – In a nationally televised speech, President Nixon announces his resignation, effective at noon the following day. May 1, 1975 – The South Vietnamese government in Saigon falls to the North. July 27, 1976 – John Lennon receives his green card in New York City. December 8, 1980 – John Lennon is shot and killed outside his home, the Dakota, in New York City. ABOUT THE PRODUCTION“This is a film we’ve wanted to make for a long time,” says David Leaf of THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON, his and John Scheinfeld’s account of the United States government’s efforts to deport John Lennon in the early 1970s. “It’s definitely a forgotten story. The vast majority of the people who lived through that period and knew something about the Lennon case haven’t thought about it in a really long time. For anyone born since then, it’s a probably an unknown story. For the most part, what people under 40 know about John Lennon is that he was in the Beatles; he wrote “Imagine,” which they sang in a choir in school; and he was murdered. Other than that, I don’t think people really have a sense as to the courage with which he lived his life and his and Yoko’s willingness to put everything on the line for what they believed in.” Early attempts to get the film off the ground in the 1990s were unsuccessful. But the filmmakers found themselves returning to the subject of Lennon’s travails in the wake of 9/11, the Iraq War, and the furor that erupted when entertainment figures spoke out in protest. Recalls Leaf, “We saw what happened when Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks and other celebrities voiced their opinions regarding the war or the president. We thought by telling this story that took place 35 years ago, we could make a film that was relevant to the dialogue in America today.” The events of 35-40 years ago were critical to the filmmakers’ conception of THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON. Says Scheinfeld, “This film had to be about the social, political and cultural landscape of America during this period, and what Lennon was stepping into when he took the stance that he did.” Securing the cooperation of Yoko Ono was key, a matter of both cinematic necessity and principle. “We don’t do anything that’s not authorized,” notes Leaf. “In order to make a film with all the elements we needed – never-before-seen footage, John Lennon’s music, Yoko Ono’s memory, comments and observations on what happened to them – we had to go to Yoko and tell her, ‘Here’s what we want to do.’” In thirteen years as production partners, Leaf and Scheinfeld have worked closely with great performers and their estates to make comprehensive biographical portraits that highlight the creative processes. Ono was familiar with the team’s work, having sat for an interview with Scheinfeld for his recent documentary about singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson, one of Lennon’s favorite artists and a close friend (Lennon produced Nilsson’s album “Pussy Cats”). With a thorough understanding of the film Leaf and Scheinfeld had in mind, Ono agreed to participate. They began seeking a production partner and distributor, and approached Lionsgate, which was expanding deeper into feature documentaries with the production of Werner Herzog’s acclaimed GRIZZLY MAN and Lian Lunson’s LEONARD COHEN I’M YOUR MAN. They met with Kevin Beggs, President, Programming and Production for Lionsgate Television and head of the company’s documentary feature development and production arm. Though Beggs is a fan of the Beatles and Lennon, he knew little about Lennon’s deportation fight and was fascinated to learn about the shadowy machinations behind it. Beggs remarks, “The story John and David told was both compelling and relevant. We thought, ‘Wow. What a great follow up to not only GRIZZLY MAN but also to LEONARD COHEN.’” Lionsgate President Tom Ortenberg agreed. “I thought it was an important story, and I knew David and John would make an informative, provocative and broadly entertaining film. You couldn’t ask for a more charismatic and intriguing subject than John Lennon.” Beggs notes that the project’s topical nature was a natural fit for the studio that released not only FAHRENHEIT 9/11, but also CRASH and SECRETARY. “We’re committed to supporting controversial, provocative works that challenge the mainstream,” he affirms. “And nobody, now or then, embodies that spirit more than John Lennon.” Kevin Beggs came to VH1 looking for a production and distribution partner and the cable channel signed on as a co-producer. VH1 will air the film commercial free after its theatrical and DVD release as part of its “Rock Docs” franchise, a series of feature length documentaries all revealing an untold story in the history of rock and hip-hop music, combining never-before-seen footage with a unique and unconventional narrative approach. “This film is a natural addition to our Rock Docs franchise as we’re committed to providing our viewers with a visual history of some of the most important artists and movements in music. John Lennon was the voice of his generation and his stance against war and the challenges he faced in spreading a message of peace are proving to be a story that’s relevant today and is important to be told,” said Michael Hirschorn, Executive Vice President, Original Production and Programming, VH1. THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON depicts an era of ongoing challenges to the mainstream as it follows Lennon’s journey from 1966, when he had his first significant brush with controversy in the U.S., to 1976, when he received his green card granting him permanent resident status. The narrative presents both the microcosm of Lennon’s personal experience and the macrocosm of the world in which it took place. In tackling the larger historic landscape, Leaf and Scheinfeld sought to interview a broad range of notables whose lives were bound up in the era’s events. Leaf describes their criteria simply: “Who speaks with authority and credibility to what happened? Not somebody who was at a remove from it, not somebody who’s studied it, but somebody who was in the thick of it. We wanted the entire spectrum of participants, from the Nixon administration all the way to the far end of the radical left.” The filmmakers had already begun work on the film in April 2005 with an interview of John Sinclair, whose 1969 sentencing on marijuana charges led to the benefit concert that would ultimately changed Lennon’s life. By July 2005, Leaf and Scheinfeld were well into production, and they conducted a remarkable series of interviews into the winter of 2006. The roster includes radical leaders who were targeted by the FBI (Professor Angela Davis, Black Panther founder Bobby Seale, Yippie Stew Albert), as well as two former FBI agents who participated in the bureau’s surveillance operations; former Nixon White House staffers G. Gordon Liddy and John Dean, as well George S. McGovern, Nixon’s Democratic opponent in the 1972 election; Walter Cronkite, the CBS News anchor voted “the most trusted man in America”; and Geraldo Rivera, whose legal representation of the New York Puerto Rican activist group the Young Lords jump-started his journalism career at WABC-Television in 1970. Leaf and Scheinfeld wanted very much to interview former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who began his legal career in 1958 and served as New York’s Secretary of State from 1975-1978. As it happens, Ortenberg had come to know Cuomo when Lionsgate released the documentary FAHRENHEIT 9/11 in 2002. “I was fortunate enough to become friends with Governor Cuomo through our distribution of FAHRENHEIT 9/11, and we’ve remained good friends to this day,” says Ortenberg. “When this project came to us, I immediately thought of the Governor, who would likely have some very important things to say about that time in American history.” Ortenberg phoned Cuomo about appearing in the film, and one day the Governor telephoned Leaf and Scheinfeld. Cuomo had concerns; he hadn’t known Lennon and admitted he wouldn’t necessarily know one Beatles song from another. Recalls Leaf, “He said, ‘Why do you want me?’ I said, ‘We want you to be our Cicero. We want you to talk about the Constitutional issues.’” Interviews would sometimes take surprising turns. Leaf cites their session with Vietnam veteran/antiwar activist Ron Kovic, the subject of the film BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY. “When Ron Kovic came for his interview, we had no idea how passionate he was about John Lennon,” Leaf notes. “But we knew who he was and what he had been through, and he brings a moral authority to the story because he actually went to Vietnam and lost the use of half his body because of the experience. He turned out to be, to us, one of the most important people in the movie because he makes such an emotional, visceral connection between the Vietnam War and what happened to John.” But the closest perspective on Lennon’s private life comes from Yoko Ono, his partner before, during and after their campaign for peace. Ono sat with Leaf for extended interviews on three separate occasions, the most recent of which took place in March 2006. Comments Scheinfeld, “She really came to trust David and opened up. She is the one person who not only can speak to what happened, but why it happened and what their motivations were, what pressures they felt. Part of the subtext here is a great love story between John and Yoko, and she speaks to that as well.” Ono granted the filmmakers unprecedented access to the Lennon estate’s archives, which yielded a tremendous amount of never-before-seen audiovisual materials. THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON reveals a couple very much in love, with a playful rapport and a shared dedication to ideals of peace. Notes Scheinfeld, “From almost the time John and Yoko got together officially as a couple, they had cameras around. We had access to a number of unfinished films; finished but unreleased films; home movies; and private wedding photographs. These materials give an idea of what their daily life was like. One of the things you see in this film is the journey that they took together.” Beyond Ono’s archives, Leaf and Scheinfeld scoured archives, libraries and private collections all over the world searching for unique audiovisual materials to illustrate the film. They turned up pieces of footage from an outtake reel in Vienna, and local news clips that had not been seen since their initial broadcast more than 30 years ago. They unearthed revealing moments featuring Presidents Johnson and Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. They acquired footage depicting the film’s various interview subjects in the 1960s and 1970s, and then interwove those archival sequences with the guests’ contemporary interviews. Some searches took months on end, as was the case with the footage of Lennon receiving his green card. Lennon himself is the film’s paramount witness, seen and heard in its footage and on the soundtrack. The vast majority of the film’s songs – 37 out of 40 – are culled from his post-Beatles career, and serve to advance the narrative and offer commentary. Comments Leaf, “The songs allow John to speak musically to how he was feeling and what he was thinking at a specific time.” Ono also allowed the filmmakers to use Lennon’s music, stripped of vocals, as underscore. By the time they completed the film, Leaf and Scheinfeld had discovered new wrinkles in a saga dating back several decades. Says Leaf, “When we started, we knew what had happened, but we didn’t know exactly why. Why had the U.S. government targeted John Lennon? Why did they see him as such as threat? What was so dangerous about what he was saying? What can we learn from what happened to John Lennon? This movie is an adventure story about what happened to the most famous person in the world when he decided to use his fame to launch a worldwide campaign for peace.” JOHN LENNON
While in the Beatles, Lennon displayed an outspokenness that immersed the band in controversy and helped redefine the rules of acceptable behavior for rock stars. He famously remarked in 1965 that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus" - a statement that was more an observation than a boast, but that resulted in the band's records being burned and removed from radio station playlists in the U.S. He criticized America's involvement in Vietnam, and, as the Sixties progressed, he became an increasingly important symbol of the burgeoning counterculture. But it was only after the breakup of the Beatles in 1970 that the figure the world now recognizes as "John Lennon" truly came into being. Whether he was engaging in social activism; giving long, passionate interviews that, once again, broadened the nature of public discourse for artists; defining a new life as a self-described "househusband;" or writing and recording songs, Lennon came to view his life as a work of art in which every act shimmered with potential meaning for the world at large. It was a Messianic attitude, to be sure, but one that was tempered by an innate inclusiveness and generosity. If he saw himself as larger than life, he also yearned for a world in which his ego managed at once to absorb everyone else and dissolve all differences among people, leaving a Zen-like tranquility and calm. "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one," he sang in "Imagine," which has become his best-known song and an international anthem of peace. "I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one." Such imagery, coupled with the tragedy of his murder in 1980, has often led to Lennon's being sentimentalized as a gentle prince of peace gazing off into the distance at an Eden only he could see. In fact, he was a far more complex and difficult person, which, in part, accounts for the world's endless fascination with him. Plastic Ono Band (1970), the first solo album he made after leaving the Beatles, alternates songs that are so emotionally raw that to this day they are difficult to listen to with songs of extraordinary beauty and simplicity. Gripped by his immersion in primal-scream therapy, which encouraged its practitioners to re-experience their most profound psychic injuries, Lennon sought in such songs as "Mother" and "God" to confront and strip away the traumas that had afflicted his life since childhood. And those traumas were considerable. Lennon's mother, Julia, drifted in and out of his life during his childhood in Liverpool - he was raised by Julia's sister Mimi and Mimi's husband, George - and then died in a car accident when Lennon was seventeen. His father was similarly absent, essentially walking out on the family when John was an infant. He disappeared for good when Lennon was five, only to return after his son had become famous as a member of the Beatles. Consequently, Lennon struggled with fears of abandonment his entire life. When he repeatedly cries, "Mama, don't go/Daddy come home," in "Mother," it's less a performance than a scarifying brand of therapeutic performance art. And in that regard, as well as many others, it revealed the influence of Yoko Ono, whom Lennon had married in 1969, leaving his first wife, Cynthia, and their son Julian in order to do so. The minimalist sound of Plastic Ono Band was significant too. Lennon had come to associate the elaborate musical arrangements of much of the Beatles' later work with Paul McCartney and George Martin, and he consciously set out to purge those elements from his own work. Co-producing with Ono and the legendary Phil Spector, he built a sonic environment that could not have been more basic - guitar, bass, drums, the occasional piano -- whatever was essential and absolutely nothing more. Lyrically, he turned away from the psychedelic flights and Joycean wordplay of such songs as "I Am the Walrus" and "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" - as well as his books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works -- and toward a style in which unadorned, elemental speech gathered poetic force through its very directness. On his next album, Imagine (1971), Lennon felt confident enough to reintroduce some melodic elements reminiscent of the Beatles into his songs. Working again with Ono and Spector, he retains the eloquent plainspokenness of Plastic Ono Band, but allows textural elements such as strings, to create more of a sense of beauty. The album's title track alone ensured its historical importance; it is a call to idealism that has provided solace and inspiration at every moment of social and humanitarian crisis since it was written. From there Lennon turned to a style that was a sort of journalistic agit-prop. Sometime In New York City (1972) is as outward-looking and blunt as Imagine was, for the most part, soft-focused and otherworldly. As its title suggests, the album reflects Lennon's immersion in the drama and noise of the city to which he had moved with Yoko Ono. And as its cover art suggests, the album is something like a newspaper - a report from the radical frontlines on the political upheavals of the day. His activism would create enormous problems for Lennon, however. The Nixon administration, paranoid about the possibility that a former Beatle might become a potent leader and recruiting tool of the anti-war movement, attempted to have Lennon deported. Years of legal battles ensued before Lennon finally was awarded his green card in 1976. Lennon's political struggles unfortunately found their match in his personal life. He and Ono split up in the fall of 1973, shortly before the release of his album, Mind Games. He moved to Los Angeles and later described the eighteen months he spent separated from Ono as his "lost weekend," a period of wild indulgence and artistic drift. Like Mind Games, the albums he made during this period, Walls and Bridges (1974) and Rock N Roll (1975), are the expressions of a major artist seeking, with mixed results, to recover his voice. None of them lack charm, and their high points include the lovely title track of Mind Games; Walls and Bridges' "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," a rollicking duet with Elton John that gave Lennon his first number-one single as a solo artist; and the sweet nostalgia of Rock N Roll, a covers album that was Lennon's tribute to the musical pioneers of his youth. But none of those albums rank among his greatest work. In 1975, Lennon reunited with Ono, and their son Sean was born later that year. For the next five years, Lennon withdrew from public life, and his family became his focus. Then, in 1980, he and Ono returned to the studio to work on Double Fantasy, a hymn to their life together with Sean. The couple was plotting a full-fledged comeback - doing major interviews to support the album's release, recording new songs for a follow-up, planning a tour. Then, shockingly, Lennon was shot to death outside the apartment building where he and Ono lived on the night of December 8, 1980. Lennon's death broke hearts around the world. In the U.S., it recalled nothing so much as the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, an event for which, ironically, the arrival of the Beatles a few months later had provided a welcome tonic. In the twenty-five years since, Lennon's influence and symbolic importance have only grown. His music, of course, will live forever. But he has survived primarily as a restless voice of change and independent thought. He is an enemy of the status quo, a bundle of contradictions who insisted on a world in which all the various elements of his personality could find free, untrammelled _expression. Innumerable times since his death Lennon has been sorely missed. And just as many times and more he has been present - evoked by all of us who find ourselves and each other in the music he made and the vision that he articulated and tried to make real. - Anthony DeCurtis
THE US VS JOHN LENNON |
If John Lennon had only been one of the four members of the Beatles, his artistic immortality would already have been assured. The so-called "smart Beatle," he brought a penetrating intelligence and a stinging wit both to the band's music and its self-presentation. But in such songs as "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," "Rain" and "In My Life," he also marshaled gorgeous melodies to evoke a sophisticated, dreamlike world-weariness well beyond his years. Such work suggested not merely a profound musical and literary sensibility - a genius, in short -- but a vision of life that was simultaneously reflective, utopian and poignantly realistic.
