- #Spectacle yoko ono disrupting beatles movie#
- #Spectacle yoko ono disrupting beatles series#
- #Spectacle yoko ono disrupting beatles download#
For her part, she was vigilant about escaping the typical role of the artist’s wife. In the documentary, McCartney politely complains that his songwriting with Lennon is disrupted by Ono’s omnipresence. Ono did not “break up the Beatles.” (If Lennon’s distancing from the band was influenced by his desire to explore other pursuits, including his personal and creative relationship with Ono, that was his call.) But she did intrude. (In 1970, Esquire published an article titled “John Rennon’s Excrusive Gloupie” that promised to reveal “the Yoko nobody Onos,” featuring an illustration of Ono looming over Lennon, who is rendered as a cockroach on her leash.) These slurs would spiral into an indefatigable pop-culture meme that has haunted generations of women accused of intruding on male genius. She was cast as the groupie from hell, a sexually domineering “ dragon lady” and a witch who hypnotized Lennon into spurning the lads for some woman. The idea that Ono doomed the band was always a canard that smacked of misogyny and racism. In the catalog, she is photographed in front of the museum holding a sign that says “F,” recasting it as the “Museum of Modern art.” In 1971, she would stage an imaginary exhibition of ephemeral works at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She was a pioneer of participatory artwork, a collaborator of experimental musicians like John Cage and a master at coyly appearing in spaces where she was not supposed to belong. Ono was, of course, already an accomplished performance artist when she encountered Lennon, seven years her junior, at a gallery show in 1966.
#Spectacle yoko ono disrupting beatles series#
Jackson has called his series “a documentary about a documentary,” and we are constantly reminded that we are watching the band produce its image for the camera. I was seeing intimate, long-lost footage of the world’s most famous band preparing for its final performance, and I couldn’t stop watching Yoko Ono sitting around, doing nothing. My attention kept drifting toward her corner of the frame. But as the hours passed, and Ono remained - painting at an easel, chewing a pastry, paging through a Lennon fan magazine - I found myself impressed by her stamina, then entranced by the provocation of her existence and ultimately dazzled by her performance. Why is she there? I pleaded with my television set. The vast set only emphasizes the ludicrousness of her proximity. When George Harrison walks off, briefly quitting the band, there is Ono, wailing inchoately into his microphone.Īt first I found Ono’s omnipresence in the documentary bizarre, even unnerving. Later, when the group squeezes into a control room at the studio, Ono is there, wedged between Lennon and Ringo Starr, wordlessly unwrapping a piece of chewing gum and working it between Lennon’s fingers. Lennon slips behind the piano and Ono is there, her head hovering above his shoulder. When the band starts into “Don’t Let Me Down,” Ono is there, reading a newspaper. When Paul McCartney starts to play “I’ve Got a Feeling,” Ono is there, stitching a furry object in her lap. She perches in reach of John Lennon, her bemused face oriented toward him like a plant growing to the light.
#Spectacle yoko ono disrupting beatles movie#
Įarly in “The Beatles: Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s nearly eight-hour documentary about the making of the album “Let It Be,” the band forms a tight circle in the corner of a movie soundstage.
#Spectacle yoko ono disrupting beatles download#
To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
0 kommentar(er)
