S. vs. John Lennon.
The film's directors - David Leaf, 54, and John Scheinfeld, 53, recently spoke with the News about their project. News: How difficult was it to get Yoko Ono's cooperation in making this film? Leaf: First I met with her attorney.
After some conversation, I met with Yoko, and she agreed to participate. That makes it sound easier than it was. At a press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival, she said that she had to be 'cagey' with us.
She's often approached for things like this. But she also said she reached a point in the process where she felt she could give us her moral support. That meant she'd sit in front of our camera for an interview.
We felt we had to have Yoko's voice in the film. I don't think we would have made the movie if we couldn't do it the way we wanted. Scheinfeld: Everybody has read the mythology of who Yoko is.
Our experience with her has really been terrific. She's tough. She's smart.
And she's fair. When we first came to her, she was very cagey. She said, 'Who are you guys, and why should I help you?
' We wanted access to the Lennon/Ono archive and we wanted stuff that no one has seen, stuff that helps illustrate this unknown story. We also wanted wall-to-wall John Lennon music. She controls that, so we could not have made this film without her.
We have 36 John Lennon songs and one Yoko Ono song in the movie. We felt emotionally supported by her. News: Safe to assume that you both were Beatles fans?
Leaf: I loved the Beatles, and Lennon certainly was a hero. I went to college in Washington, D.C.
, during the Nixon Administration. (He attended George Washington University.) I was a journalist in college, so I was at demonstrations more as an observer than a participant.
Still, you couldn't help but be caught up in the times. Scheinfeld: I grew up a gigantic fan of the Beatles. Of any group, they had the most impact on me.
News: When did you first think about this project? News: What accounts for the delay? Leaf: We finally felt there was enough of a story in the public domain that we could tell it.
We could see the smoking gun. (Sen. Strom Thurmond wrote a letter to the White House in which he suggested that Lennon be deported because he'd once been busted for pot in Britain).
News: So it was a highly organized effort to get Lennon out of the country? Leaf: Certainly, there was a concerted effort to get John out of the way. Deportation was the easiest way to do that.
There were those who felt he could threaten Nixon's re-election. News: In addition to the core story, you include background about the '60s. How difficult was it to find fresh footage?
Scheinfeld: In the 'bigger than Jesus' section, we wanted to find something different. (In 1966, Lennon told the press that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Some fans, particularly in the South, began burning their Beatles records.
) We finally found a 20-minute roll of film shot in Birmingham during what we called the 'Burning Beatle' days. News: Any other footage that no one's seen before? Scheinfeld: We were told that footage of John getting his green card didn't exist.
(Lennon fought a lengthy battle with the U.S. government and ultimately won.
) But with three weeks to go, CBS found the footage. It was mislabeled and in the wrong part of their archives. (CBS local news had shot the film but it wound up in the network's archives.
) News: In making the movie, was there anything that surprised you? Leaf: I don't think anything about the story surprised me, but I came to understand what the government was doing and also the kind of fearlessness it took for John and Yoko to do what they did. They may not have known at the beginning the provocation they were releasing.
They did what they did as a pure artistic statement without fearing the consequences. Rather than self-promote, John was willing to use everything he learned from the Beatle years and put it all on the line for peace and do it in a very interesting, artistic way. (Lennon and Ono donned pajamas and staged "bed-ins" to promote peace.
) He and Yoko brought their talents together. They were an artistic team. She was integral to how he was moving forward artistically.
News: But sometimes, Lennon seems almost naive, which isn't how we're accustomed to seeing him. Leaf: Occasionally that quick wit comes through. There was a reason we fell in love with the Beatles.
John was charismatic, and he didn't suffer fools. He didn't have time for people who didn't get what he was doing. I love that.
News: We hear from Gore Vidal, Angela Davis and a host of others in the film. How did you go about selecting the people you interviewed? Leaf: We write an outline, as if the movie were scripted.
Then, we cast the movie. That's a funny word to use for a documentary. But we want the relevant, credible people speaking to each aspect of the story.
From a journalistic point of view, the goal is to tell the truth. How do you do that? You come as close to the truth as you can by presenting as many sides of the story as you can.
We have a point of view but we didn't want to tell the audience what to think. We just wanted them to think. We didn't have a narrator.
John and Yoko are the principal voices in the film. Scheinfeld: We live in an era of handlers. Celebrities usually have their managers looking out for them.
John had no entourage. He was speaking from the heart and very sincerely and he did it without regard to the potential career-killing consequences. To us, that makes him heroic.
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