Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald is perhaps an even greater documentarian than he is a narrative director, and that’s saying a great deal about the man who made The Last King of Scotland and The Mauritanian.
But he also made works like One Day in September, Marley, and now One to One: John & Yoko, which covers the first year and a half that former Beatle John Lennon and his frequently maligned wife Yoko Ono lived in New York City in a modest two-room apartment in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s. This period of time was their most politically active and culminated with the One to One benefit concert, across two nights at Madison Square Garden. The shows marked Lennon’s final full-length, post-Beatles performance, all of which has been lovingly restored and remastered by son Sean Ono Lennon.
What Macdonald has done with One to One is not only track the couple’s early months in the city, but also document how they were reacting to what was going on in America at that time, including the early days of the Watergate investigation, the Nixon re-election campaign and two political conventions, the growing protests again the Vietnam War, especially on college campuses (perhaps typified by the student shooting at Kent State in 1970), and violent protests by a growing faction of the population that stood against everything the administration stood for.
Using never-before-seen material including recorded telephone conversations between Lennon and/or Ono and journalists, managers, and fellow organizers and the MSG concert footage (which will be released in its entirety later this year), the movie places the artists’ movement, appearances, and organizing efforts in the context of history. The result is dynamic, electric, and fully changes the perception of just how influential the couple was, especially in New York at the time. People of power, influence, and artistic merit flocked to them, and John and Yoko always tried to be accommodating and gracious to anyone that got in front of them, unless they were known to be violent in their expression.
The couple also loved watching television in bed and did so frequently for hours on end. Granted, there weren’t nearly as many options as there are today, but they didn’t just watch the news; they were obsessed with junk TV as well, and Macdonald incorporates the motif of flipping through channels and pausing on game shows, commercials, series, news, and variety programs, before moving onto the next show. The filmmaker has also re-created the apartment in exacting detail to show us just how restricted the footprint of their existence was for 18 months, and it’s incredible to think of the work that was accomplished in that small space.
The concert footage is scattered throughout the film, and thankfully Macdonald allows all or most of each song chosen to play in its entirety, including a solo song from Ono, with the scorching band backing her up. It seems like there’s a new doc about Lennon coming out every year lately, but the narrow focus of One to One makes it informative and essential viewing for those interested in music and history and how the two were forever bonded in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The film is now playing exclusively in IMAX before expanding to additional theaters in the coming weeks; it will air on HBO and be available to stream on Max in late 2025.
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