Imagine: John Lennon (1988)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Andrew Solt

Writers (WGA):

Sam Egan (written by) &
Andrew Solt (written by)

Release Date:

7 October 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | Music

Tagline:

Discover John...the angry youth, the musician, the radical, the husband, the father, the lover, the idealist...through his own words and personal collection of film and music.

Plot:

A biography of the rock music star.

Plot Keywords:

John Lennon | Rock Music | Nude Drawing | Beach | Hamburg Germany

Cast

John Lennon	...	Himself / Narration (archive footage)
Yoko Ono	...	Herself (also archive footage)
Paul McCartney	...	Himself (archive footage)
George Harrison	...	Himself (archive footage)
Ringo Starr	...	Himself (archive footage)
David Bowie	...	Himself
Phil Spector	...	Himself (archive footage)
Cynthia Lennon	...	Herself - John Lennon's first wife (also archive footage)
Julian Lennon	...	Himself
Sean Lennon	...	Himself (also archive footage)
Al Capp	...	Himself (archive footage)
May Pang	...	Herself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Dick Cavett	...	Himself
Salvador Dalí	...	Himself (archive footage)
Gloria Emerson	...	Herself, New York Times reporter (archive footage)
Brian Epstein	...	Himself - Beatles' Manager (archive footage)
Mal Evans	...	Himself (archive footage) (as The Plastic Ono Band)
Elton John	...	Himself (archive footage)
George Martin	...	Himself - Beatles' producer
Elliot Mintz	...	Himself (also archive footage)
Jack Palance	...	Himself
Derek Taylor	...	Himself - Beatles' Publicist (archive footage)
Klaus Voormann	...	Himself (as The Plastic Ono Band)
Andy Warhol	...	Himself
Alan White	...	Himself (as The Plastic Ono Band)
Allan Williams	...	Himself - Beatles' Booking Agent

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 | Iceland:L | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | UK:15 | USA:R | Australia:M

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

George Martin remixed The Beatles songs used in the film for Dolby six-channel stereo used in theaters. He called the task one of the biggest challenges of his career.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

Stand By Me

Really fascinating footage

As a big Beatles fan, I've seen lots of documentaries and shows about them; but this one has a lot of stuff I've never seen before, mostly because it focuses on John. The music of course is fantastic as always but what's most valuable is the candid looks we get at Lennon. A vagrant, probably stoned, confronts Lennon at his home in England, asking what the different lyrics mean and the ex-Beatle tries to talk some sense, comforting the confused man, and inviting him inside for a meal. It's even eerier considering what a later confused fan was to do. And some of the strongest parts of the film are long sequences of John confronting someone over his antiwar politics and tactics. Particularly Al Capp, famous cartoonist of "L'il Abner" who proves to be a royal a**hole here, insulting Yoko and John stays surprisingly level-headed throughout. It's a really dynamic scene. He actually loses his temper more when confronted by a NY Times reporter who tells him how immature it was for him to send back the MBE; he shouts back that maybe she liked the old him, the mop-tops and A Hard Day's Night but she needs to grow up. And finally, there's some footage taken not long before Lennon's death when a young man is thrilled to meet him, asking inevitably "When are you guys gonna get back together?" Little did he know that in a few days (or weeks, I'm not sure when this was taken) that dream would be shattered once in for all.