When John Lennon thought he was Robin Hood
New York musician David Peel rings up the Greenwich Village apartment of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. She answers. After exchanging standard greetings, Ono seems to crumble.
Yoko Ono: People are saying that I’m the one who broke up the Beatles, you know? When I was pregnant, I got letters that said, “I hope your baby dies.” And they sent me a rag doll with a bunch of needles stuck in it, in its eyes, in its mouth, in its nose. When I walk down the street with John, they come up to me and say, “you’re ugly.” They pull my hair and hit me in the head.
David Peel: That happened in England?
Yoko Ono: Yes, yes, in England. I had three spontaneous abortions during that time.
David Peel: Oh my God, Yoko, I can’t believe it.
That 1971 conversation was never made public, until being included in the documentary One to One: John & Yoko, which debuted at the recent Venice Film Festival, will be shown at the BFI London Film Festival in mid-October and is awaiting a commercial release date. What is striking about the movie, which addresses a well-known subject (the English press enthusiastically piled onto the public lynching of Ono at the time, as period newspaper clippings make clear) is the timbre of the voices it captures, their indignation, their anguish, and the look it provides at a moment that was as socially and politically turbulent as it was musically innovative.
Source: Carlos Marcos/english.elpais.com
