John Lennon was an artist of innate honesty. Whether singing from the gut on the yearning It Won’t Be Long, or screaming out his pain on guttural anthems Cold Turkey and God, everything the rhythm guitarist touched stemmed from a truthful place. Considering all that, it’s to director Alan G.Parker’s credit that Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade maintains that integrity by letting the talking heads carry the heavy lifting.
People interviewed for the documentary include Bob Harris (who did an insightful interview with the Beatle during the 1970s), writer Philip Norman (who describes the artist as a “self-seeking hedonistic bastard), and journalist Ray Connolly (who was personally told by Lennon not to write about the group’s split in 1969). In typical rock fashion, the songwriter chastised the writer for not spilling the news before Paul McCartney announced the cessation.
Borrowed Time acknowledges concert movie Let it Be (Michael Lindsay Hogg, 1970), much of the tensions felt between Lennon and McCartney, and how the movie neglects the horror the men were experiencing in their personal lives. In 1967, Beatle manager Brian Epstein died, leaving a gaping hole the group never truly sealed, leading the songwriting bassist to temporarily take charge of the outfit. Drugs were being taken, side projects were becoming more prevalent the longer George Harrison invested in them, and the arrival of Yoko Ono changed the dynamic of the quartet.
Truthfully, Ono helped steer Lennon in his solo career, and may have played a part influencing his activism. By 1972, the couple had found a new home in the United States of America, where they campaigned for peace during the Vietnam era. “They definitely got under the skin of Richard Nixon, and all his cronies,” the audience is told, clearly understanding the significance of pop music over politics. “It’s a very scary place to be,” Harris sighs, contemplating the guitarist’s struggle in a country that had previously shaped his record collection.
The scorching protest song Gimme Some Truth makes a jab at “Tricky Dicky” (President Nixon), but other commentators concede that the erstwhile Beatle was a bit naive in the way he conducted himself.It certainly made it harder to obtain a green card, which might explain why Lennon drank so much in Los Angeles during a period of separation from Ono. He had May Pang, a feisty new girlfriend who brought out a spring from his music, the genuinely brilliant Walls & Bridges record, but by 1975, he felt settled enough to temporarily retire from the music scene, choosing to focus his attention on newborn, Sean.
By 1980, the songwriter was reportedly inspired by McCartney’s song Coming Up to issue a new album, which snowballed into the iconic Double Fantasy. Connolly, surprisingly, says Lennon had hoped to release it as a solo album, but kow-towed to Ono’s demands, and only profered five songs for the project. “Poor showing after five years,” the columnist concedes.
Nonchalant, Lennon made it clear he didn’t care about the reviews, although no one could have foreseen that it would be the last one issued during his lifetime. Barely 40, the songwriter was savagely murdered in New York in 1980. Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade features a segment of bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr recalling where they were when they heard the news about his assassination. In later years, Paul McCartney wore a t-shirt titled ‘We Can End Gun Violence.’
There’s no directorial interpolations, no fast-cut edits, not tonal shifts. Just raw nerve, archival footage and the truth. It’s harder to think of a better way to commemorate the late Beatle.
Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade is in cinemas on Friday, May 2nd.
