Lennon Naked and ST recs
Jun. 25th, 2010 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn short: Eccleston is great, the film has the tunnel vision of its subject, but isn't a hypocrite about it. Frustrating if you're interested in other people (including Yoko) as well as Lennon; even so, but nothing of the sort was advertised, so, fair enough.
Seriously, the Yoko thing is what amazed me most, given that the film's time period is when John meets her, falls in love, forms a partnership etc., and also, Naoko Mori can act (think of the Torchwood episode To the last man, one of the few where Tosh had the opportunity to shine). But basically, we see Yoko only from John's pov, never her own, a mysterious figure who arrives to save him from Beatle boredom and offers artistic renewal. John leaving his son Julian along with first wife Cynthia is a big plot point (and paralleld with John's childhood trauma re: his father and mother), but not once do we hear Yoko has a daughter of her own whom she loses when she gets divorced (or even that she's married when she and John meet, just like he is). Yoko's own background, pre-John career, other-than-John family do not exist in this film. In a way, it's the Life on Mars approach to John Lennon: he's in every single frame, and the other characters are only there in as much as they relate to him. (This is why I prefer Ashes to Ashes and the approach of same., btw.) That the other Beatles remain shadowy I sort of expected, given the time period (Ringo and George get about three words, Paul gets at least two dialogue scenes, but still, they strike one as their Yellow Submarine selves instead of real people), but Yoko? I think the only time where we get an idea of how she feels about things other than John is after her first miscarriage when the camera lingers on Naoko Mori's face a bit before moving on to Christopher Eccleston.
Who, other than Lennon himself, doesn't remain shadowy? Brian Epstein in the opening sequence which is a kind of prologue to the main story and manages to get across both his personality and the way John related to him, the mixture between cruel, affectionate and needy, in a few minutes; Alf/Freddie/Alfred (take your choice, the biographers certainly did) Lennon, the prodigal father, and, interestingly because she's usually the one condemned to peripheral shadow-hood (see: Backbeat, for example), Cynthia. Not that she has much screentime, but what there is, as with Brian Epstein, is used really well. The film doesn't downplay the vicious way John treated her towards the end (though the infamous morning after scene with Yoko doesn't make it into the story, or the fact he had the gall to sue Cynthia for adultery as a way to save money before Yoko's pregnancy made his lawyer dissuade him instead), and still manages to make her look as a survivor, not a victim.
Mind you: in this film John is vicious to just about everyone, except for Yoko, and it needs an actor of Christopher Eccleston's calibre with the charisma to carry that off and yet make it comprehensible why all these people cared regardless, and to sell you on the vulnerability behind the relentless oneliners as well. There would be the danger of making the film an ode to Lennon's pain - or man pain, to use a current internet expression - but the script as well as the direction counters this with the pointed juxtaposition of John going on a "you left me" rant with his father while completely ignoring his son early on, and finishing the film with a bitter John, post primal scream therapy, asking his father "what about me?" when in the next scene he doesn't answer in his final British press conference when a reporter asks him "what about your son?". (That Philip Larkin poem starts with the lines "they fuck you up, your mum and dad" but ends with "and don't have any kids yourself".)
In conclusion: the film made a choice of what to emphasize and went for John Lennon's inner and outer family drama. I probably would have made other choices (read: Yoko's pov as well as John's, definitely her own losses and struggles instead of just letting her be a saviour figure with no life of her own, and the breaking apart of the Lennon/McCartney partnership, because that was the other big divorce going on and deserves more than a single "this is my band, not yours, and it's over when I say it's over" scene), but I respect that when they did this instead of trying to do justice to all aspects of his life and ending up treating all superficial, as many biopics are prone to do. It's basically "portrait of the artist as a screwed-up kid who never grew up", and as such really done well...Though is this really why we remember John Lennon?
***
Meanwhile, the non-classic Trek fandom continues to be creative:
TNG: Prisoner's Dilemma is a great Ro pov on her last meeting with Picard. The Preemptive Strike covers in many ways the same ground the later DS9 two-parter The Maquis does and in one respect does it better, because we care about Ro in a way we don't about Sisko's never before or after heard from old friend Carl Hudson. Also, Ro was the very first Bajoran on Trek, and Michelle Forbes rocks in the part. Go read (and rewatch)!
DS9: You've got a friend in me. Charming and endearing vid about Jake and Nog and their friendship through seven seasons. I love those boys, and so does this vid.
Seriously, the Yoko thing is what amazed me most, given that the film's time period is when John meets her, falls in love, forms a partnership etc., and also, Naoko Mori can act (think of the Torchwood episode To the last man, one of the few where Tosh had the opportunity to shine). But basically, we see Yoko only from John's pov, never her own, a mysterious figure who arrives to save him from Beatle boredom and offers artistic renewal. John leaving his son Julian along with first wife Cynthia is a big plot point (and paralleld with John's childhood trauma re: his father and mother), but not once do we hear Yoko has a daughter of her own whom she loses when she gets divorced (or even that she's married when she and John meet, just like he is). Yoko's own background, pre-John career, other-than-John family do not exist in this film. In a way, it's the Life on Mars approach to John Lennon: he's in every single frame, and the other characters are only there in as much as they relate to him. (This is why I prefer Ashes to Ashes and the approach of same., btw.) That the other Beatles remain shadowy I sort of expected, given the time period (Ringo and George get about three words, Paul gets at least two dialogue scenes, but still, they strike one as their Yellow Submarine selves instead of real people), but Yoko? I think the only time where we get an idea of how she feels about things other than John is after her first miscarriage when the camera lingers on Naoko Mori's face a bit before moving on to Christopher Eccleston.
Who, other than Lennon himself, doesn't remain shadowy? Brian Epstein in the opening sequence which is a kind of prologue to the main story and manages to get across both his personality and the way John related to him, the mixture between cruel, affectionate and needy, in a few minutes; Alf/Freddie/Alfred (take your choice, the biographers certainly did) Lennon, the prodigal father, and, interestingly because she's usually the one condemned to peripheral shadow-hood (see: Backbeat, for example), Cynthia. Not that she has much screentime, but what there is, as with Brian Epstein, is used really well. The film doesn't downplay the vicious way John treated her towards the end (though the infamous morning after scene with Yoko doesn't make it into the story, or the fact he had the gall to sue Cynthia for adultery as a way to save money before Yoko's pregnancy made his lawyer dissuade him instead), and still manages to make her look as a survivor, not a victim.
Mind you: in this film John is vicious to just about everyone, except for Yoko, and it needs an actor of Christopher Eccleston's calibre with the charisma to carry that off and yet make it comprehensible why all these people cared regardless, and to sell you on the vulnerability behind the relentless oneliners as well. There would be the danger of making the film an ode to Lennon's pain - or man pain, to use a current internet expression - but the script as well as the direction counters this with the pointed juxtaposition of John going on a "you left me" rant with his father while completely ignoring his son early on, and finishing the film with a bitter John, post primal scream therapy, asking his father "what about me?" when in the next scene he doesn't answer in his final British press conference when a reporter asks him "what about your son?". (That Philip Larkin poem starts with the lines "they fuck you up, your mum and dad" but ends with "and don't have any kids yourself".)
In conclusion: the film made a choice of what to emphasize and went for John Lennon's inner and outer family drama. I probably would have made other choices (read: Yoko's pov as well as John's, definitely her own losses and struggles instead of just letting her be a saviour figure with no life of her own, and the breaking apart of the Lennon/McCartney partnership, because that was the other big divorce going on and deserves more than a single "this is my band, not yours, and it's over when I say it's over" scene), but I respect that when they did this instead of trying to do justice to all aspects of his life and ending up treating all superficial, as many biopics are prone to do. It's basically "portrait of the artist as a screwed-up kid who never grew up", and as such really done well...Though is this really why we remember John Lennon?
***
Meanwhile, the non-classic Trek fandom continues to be creative:
TNG: Prisoner's Dilemma is a great Ro pov on her last meeting with Picard. The Preemptive Strike covers in many ways the same ground the later DS9 two-parter The Maquis does and in one respect does it better, because we care about Ro in a way we don't about Sisko's never before or after heard from old friend Carl Hudson. Also, Ro was the very first Bajoran on Trek, and Michelle Forbes rocks in the part. Go read (and rewatch)!
DS9: You've got a friend in me. Charming and endearing vid about Jake and Nog and their friendship through seven seasons. I love those boys, and so does this vid.
