A Painter Witnessed John Lennon's Death. He Channeled the Tragic Moment into a Chilling ...
Many Americans learned that John Lennon had been gunned down when sportscaster Howard Cosell broke the news during a Monday Night Football broadcast on Dec. 8, 1980. But painter Robert Morgan knew much sooner. He heard the shots outside his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side just before 11 p.m. that night. After running to his window, he peered down and saw his famous neighbor splayed on the sidewalk.
Sensing that he was witnessing history, Morgan instinctively reached for his camera. As his finger hovered over the shutter, he stopped.
Morgan tells his story in the new documentary Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, which premieres in U.K. cinemas and on the Icon Film Channel on May 2. Directed by Alan G. Parker — who previously covered the Beatles in the 2017 documentary It Was Fifty Years Ago Today... Sgt. Pepper and Beyond — the film captures the flurry of activity in Lennon’s final months as he emerged from his self-imposed exile from the music industry and returned to the recording studio.
Borrowed Time, named for one of the last songs the rock legend would ever record, details sessions for Lennon’s comeback album, Double Fantasy, as well as plans for a proposed world tour — his first since his days in the Beatles. Parker interviews set designers and lighting technicians who describe the innovative stage production that Lennon had in mind, one that was intended to (in Lennon’s words) “give Mick [Jagger] and Elton [John] f---ing ulcers!” The elaborate plans are a poignant glimpse of a future that would never be.
Source: people.com/Jordan Runtagh
