a film by Michael Epstein (text / translation: Guus Kok / Gabriëlla van Karsbergen)
Language: EnglishSubtitles: Dutch / French
Aspect Ratio: 16 : 9 (1,78)
Audio: Dolby Stereo 2.0 or 5.1 Surround
Colour/Black & White 115 min.
Extras: movie trailers
This documentary aired earlier this summer by the BBC in an 80 minutes version. This DVD, however, is a 115 minutes version, released by Living Colour Entertainment.
What a wonderful document.
Exactly what the fans needed after all other material about the period 1940-1960 and the Beatles era, which we all know so well. Lennon NYC focuses of the years during which it was more difficult to find out about what John was up to.
About, until 1975, his attempts to get a ‘green card’ (residence permit) and what had been the impact of that on his life. This is told in much detail.
As I'm the one who loves the music therefore every report about the recording sessions couldn’t be long enough for me and I am pleased to say that lots of attention is paid to this. And that’s exactly how it should be.
In her book Imagine This, Julia Baird (John’s half-sister) intriguingly tells about how difficult it was in the early 1970s to get him on the phone. And that she didn’t understand this. In this documentary John explains why he was suspicious about getting on the phone. The reason was that John felt that 'they' were after him and were tapping his phone, ‘they’ being the FBI. The reason for doing this was to find a reason to extradite him. This made him completely paranoia and he would trust no one, let alone answer the telephone.
This Lennon NYC is a must-have for every Beatlesfan in order to get a clear and independent picture of John in the period 1970-1980 while he was living in the USA.