On October 9th, 1972 an exhibition of John Lennon/Yoko Ono’s art, designed by the Master of the Fluxus movement, George Maciunas, opened at the Syracuse Museum of Art, in New York. On the same day an unusual group of John’s and Yoko’s friends, including Ringo, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Krasner, and many others, gathered to celebrate John’s birthday. This film is a visual and audio record of that event.Read More »
One of the most radical and influential works of experimental television produced by the famous couple of the late 60s, Yoko Ono and John Lennon.
In November 1968 work began on one of one of John & Yoko’s most ambitious film ventures, a 75-minute mini-feature called Rape. It starred Eva Majlata, a 21 year old Hungarian actress who couldn’t speak English. She cannot escape the prying attentions of the camera which follows her around the streets of London, through a park, allowing her no privacy and almost causing her to walk into the path of a truck. She attempts to escape in a taxi, but is still followed. She is eventually cornered in an apartment from which she apparently cannot escape and her tearful pleas to the camera remain ignored. Rape was shot when John and Yoko were both at Great Charlotte Street Hospital following Yoko’s miscarriage. The cameraman was Nick Knowland, who worked on most of John and Yoko’s productions.Read More »
The same year the The Beatles? second film, HELP!, premiered,
John Lennon?s future soul mate, avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, made her
acting debut in the twisted sickie SATAN’S BED. Ono, in a kimono, plays
the Japanese bride-to-be of a drug smuggling immigration agent who
wants to abandon crime crime for life with Yoko. But Lou, a small-time
drug dealer, doesn’t want to lose his main supplier so he cancels the
wedding by kidnapping Ono. And when he also hires three psychos –
Snake, Dip, and Angel – to rough her up, they create a mini-crimewave
that culminates in a wild attack upon… the wrong woman. Oy. So join
Yoko for a typical day in Sin City that starts when you climb under the
sheets of SATAN?S BED!Read More »
It’s 1969 and headlines blare war and civil unrest while John Lennon and Yoko Ono -rock ‘n’ roll’s most eccentric couple- are in love. They have just gotten married,they are happy to be together and they see that the world needs some changew. They announce their mission for peace and they invite the rest of the world to do the same as they do: they are lying on their bed. But people call them silly and naive they see clowns instead of true believers.
John and Yoko just do not care…Read More »
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What a perfect film…..short and simple, Ono takes a camera and a boom mike onto a hot air balloon, kicks the rope, and starts the camera and lets us watch as it goes above the clouds for a 17 minute shot. Key things to notice: A roll of 16mm film films only 14 minutes yet the film runs for 17, meaning somewhere in the clouds Ono had another camera loaded and started when the first one ran out, yet somehow the splice is not noticeable and there weren’t any computers at the time to fix this sort of thing…..all i can say is optical printing tricks at its best. The last shot, as the balloon rises above the clouds, the wind silences, and the sun becomes visible, is alone worth checking out this timeless classic of experimental film.Read More »