Who wants to watch John Lennon compose “Remember,” or “Mind Games”? Um, we do. And we almost can. Today was supposed to be the first day in history that 3 Days in the Life, a documentary composed of never-before-seen footage of John and Yoko, would be seen by the general public. The footage was filmed in February 1970, at Lennon’s Tittenhurst Park estate in England by Ono’s ex-husband Tony Cox, and the free viewing was set to take place at the Berwick Academy in Maine. But according to the school’s Web site, the screening has been cancelled due to the ongoing dispute about ownership of the footage. See the site for details, but a stop order from Yoko Ono herself is just the latest snafu in getting this footage seen by the public.
Cape Cod art collector John Fallon and several other investors paid $1 million for the ten hours of raw footage Cox shot. Planning to make a documentary from the material, the investors then discovered that they couldn’t release anything without Ono’s permission. She didn’t grant it and the tapes went untouched.
Fallon claims that now he and his partners just want the footage to be shown, so they found what the thought was a legal loophole in which the footage could be shown if it were not for profit and for educational purposes only. “I’m hoping I can just add to a better feeling of how people can understand John’s life,” Fallon reportedly said when asked about his reasons for showing the film.
Now that the viewing has been indefinitely postponed, check out the Boston Globe’s highlights of all the cool details you’re missing!
- “Lennon was seemingly oblivious to background noise. He holds interviews while Ono sits next to him talking on the phone. He also has the radio on wherever he goes, and the music from that era serves as a soundtrack to the film. As Lennon blow-dries Ono’s hair, they listen to ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’; Lennon rests on his bed, smiling as Dylan’s ‘Just Like a Woman’ plays; in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes, Lennon turns on the radio and we hear Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now.’”
- “Lennon doesn’t allow distractions to get in the way of the creative process, either. When we see him composing ‘Remember,’ he’s hunched over an upright piano banging out chords and singing near-complete lyrics. Cox hands the camera to Yoko and plays air piano next to Lennon, who isn’t fazed. The Beatle vamps for the camera and finishes the song.”
- “Lennon talks openly about the couple’s overcoming drug addiction. ‘We’ve resurrected hope in ourselves, and we’re hoping to spread it around a bit — to tell people you can get off speed, you can get off H [heroin], you can get off pot. You know, because whatever they say, you do get hooked on it,’ says Lennon.”
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- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC.
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