Everything Will Be Okay: Director Kevin Macdonald on “One to One: John and Yoko”
Share
Director Kevin Macdonald was given a trove of taped phone calls between John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which he used to create a new documentary, “One to One: John and Yoko.” The film is a portal into the past while being startlingly relevant and eerily prescient.
In the film, Macdonald immerses viewers in the culture and conflicts of the era through a treasure trove of archival footage centered on two benefit performances given by Lennon and Yoko in New York in 1972, also titled “One to One.” The film represents the icon’s final full-length concerts.
I spoke with Macdonald about his film, which will be screened at Sundance next week. Here’s what he had to say:
John Lennon once said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” These immortal words have long been attributed to the great John Lennon, and if there was ever a time to take them to heart, it’s now.
Macdonald mentioned how he felt when he started making the film and seeing the archive footage from late 1971 to early 1973. “It just seemed that every time I saw something, I’d think, ‘Oh my God, this is about now.’ It seems like it’s about the world we’re living in, whether it be the political side of it – with George Wallace and the parallels to certain other populist leaders in America – or the emphasis on race or the environment and all these things we talk about. It’s incredibly prescient in some way, and maybe this is the wrong word, but it’s also depressing that we’re still talking about the same things.”
He continued, “John and Yoko start off feeling like, ‘We can overthrow the government, we can get rid of Nixon!’ And then it becomes, ‘What can we do just for a few people? How can we actually just change the world a little bit around us?’ And maybe that’s what we’re all feeling now.”
Macdonald also spoke about John’s quote, “Flower power didn’t work. So what? We start again.” He said, “There’s a kind of optimism from a lot of these characters, even Jerry Rubin; people who feel they can change the world. People could call it naïve, but it’s actually encouraging and optimistic.”
When asked about what he learned from the vast research, Macdonald said, “I was a huge Lennon fan when I was a kid growing up. I was around 13 when he died. At the time, everything he did went to the top of the charts and everyone was talking about it. He was a hero of my teen years. But one thing I took away now was how incredibly funny he was – so sharp and clever, but on the other side of it, he’s so endearing. I also saw how he lived his life as the most famous man in the world at 32-years-old, and despite that, there’s a sort of openness to him, and a willingness to be wrong and learn.”
Macdonald also mentioned how he learned about John’s willingness to embrace his small apartment in New York City and how he was happier there than in his 70-acre mansion. “His willingness to accept that was incredible. And then at the end of the film, to embrace feminism and be the only man in the room at the first international feminist conference, for example. I mean, who else can you think of, not just in the music world, but in the arts world in general, also did that?”
When asked about working with Yoko or Sean Ono Lennon, Macdonald said, “I did not have any contact with Yoko because I think I’m right in saying that this is the first project from the estate where she wasn’t directly involved. Sean and I spoke, and I pitched him this crazy idea, and he said, ‘I think this is the kind of thing my mom would love.’ He came to see it in London and gave a few thoughts about it from one artist to another. What was very touching to me is he said, ‘I think this film captures my mother in particular better than anything else that’s out there.'”
Finally, when asked about the recorded phone calls between John and Yoko, Macdonald said, “Those were priceless. They were really worried that they were being bugged, which everyone says they were. John – or Yoko, actually – thought they should record their own calls because if there’s ever a court case, they could have the evidence themselves. So they recorded their calls and then they were completely forgotten; they were in a box somewhere. But six months into editing, I got a phone call from [Yoko collaborator, producer, and director] Simon Hilton who said, ‘Oh, we just found this box of old tapes from the era you’re making your film about. Do you want to listen to them?’ I was like, ‘Uh, yeah!’ I remember listening to them just amazed because you feel it’s their real voices in the middle of ordinary life, not conscious of performing for anyone and just chatting. I learned a huge amount from those tapes.”
