John and Sean Ono Lennon. Kishin Shinoyama Given how adventurous and prolific Steven Soderbergh’s filmography is, it’s a bit of a shock to realize that his new feature — his second this year, after the dark comedy The Christophers — marks only his third time at the helm of a documentary (after two projects focused on Spalding Gray). He took on a particular challenge with this nonfiction outing: Its primary source material, the 1980 conversation that defines and drives the project, has no visual component. How do you turn a radio conversation into a movie?
Soderbergh has found a way, and while some viewers might grow restless at the lack of “action,” the notable achievement of John Lennon: The Last Interview is its immediacy. Bolstered by an engaging profusion of archival photographs and clips (and separately, a touch of AI imagery — more on that later), voices captured half a century ago draw you close.
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John Lennon: The Last Interview
The Bottom Line Tuned in and full of life. Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Special Screenings) Director: Steven Soderbergh 1 hour 37 minutesOn the afternoon of Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon and Yoko Ono welcomed a quartet of radio people into their apartment at the Dakota for a lengthy interview, the former Beatle’s first in several years, to promote the couple’s recently released Double Fantasy. The set’s first single, “(Just Like) Starting Over,” expressed the sense of artistic renewal Lennon was feeling 10 years after the Beatles’ split and after five years away from songwriting, time spent instead as a self-proclaimed househusband focused on the couple’s son, Sean. On the basis of the free-flowing audio evidence and the warm recollections of the interviewers, the meeting went well, alive with a sense of purpose and engagement. Then Lennon and Ono headed out to the studio to work on more music, and upon their return home that night, in the entranceway of their building, Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon dead.
The main-event interview is judiciously edited from its three-hour length and framed by present-day commentary from three of the four people who conducted it: San Francisco station KFRC’s Dave Sholin (music director), Laurie Kaye (on-air host) and Ron Hummel (engineer and producer). (The fourth participant, Warner Bros. Records executive Bert Keane, died during production of the documentary.) Against a stark white backdrop, the radio journalists recall how stoked they were at the chance to speak with someone they so admired. Of course the impact of the experience was deepened and changed by the ghastly events that followed it, but it’s clear that, in the moment, they felt a sense of exhilarating connection with Lennon and Ono.
The interview finds Lennon, having just turned 40, in a reflective mood about himself and his generation (“the ’60s group that has survived”); he offers insights “not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of what we all feel.” He and Ono speak of their marriage as emblematic of a changing paradigm for men and women. They conceived Double Fantasy as a song-cycle dialogue. “Love,” she says early in the conversation, after noting the one-sidedness of the so-called sexual revolution — “is a powerful political weapon.”
Though it’s Lennon’s commentary that shapes the film, the interviewers had some time alone with Ono while her husband finished his photo shoot with Annie Liebovitz. Ono’s significance as a conceptual artist is receiving well-deserved attention these days, but it’s good to hear her voice, forthright, whip-smart and sensitive, at that point in her trajectory, just as it’s good to hear Linda McCartney’s voice in the recent doc Man on the Run, which focuses on Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles transformation. Both women withstood some ridiculously unfriendly scrutiny. Lennon’s recounting of his and Ono’s meeting at a London show of her work, and of the bashful courtship that followed, is one of the most tender and revealing parts of the interview.
The ground rule for the interviewers that day at the Dakota was “No Beatles questions,” but for Lennon, the subject arose organically. It’s notable that in the aftermath of their pop superstardom, both McCartney and Lennon rebuilt their musical careers with their wives as their creative partners. “To work with your best friend is a joy,” Lennon says of his collaboration with Ono, but he’s also talking about his years with McCartney.
The interview was captured using 1980 state-of-the-art equipment: a stereo cassette recorder and high-frequency chromium tapes. As to the 21st century tech that Soderbergh employs, it includes “Meta’s AI tools,” per production notes, and as he’s pointed out well in advance of the doc’s premiere. Given that neither Meta nor AI would rank high in a general popularity poll, the up-front announcement is something of a preemptive clearing of the decks. As to the onscreen results, the AI tools have been used in a reported 10 percent of the film, and applied to none of the doc’s deep well of archival photos, film and video. It never feels intrusive. The “thematic surrealism” it has allowed Soderbergh to achieve includes some striking imagery — notably an animated sequence of an unfolding rose that might be a wild new version of a mandala, although Soderbergh’s prompt apparently cited Busby Berkeley. There are playful illustrations of some of Lennon and Ono’s ideas as well, and more subtle, non-AI graphic elements (by BigStar Motion Design) that include color washes at the edges of some of the visuals. The feeling is organic and involving, just as the sound of the voices is intimate and enveloping.
Soderbergh and editor Nancy Main incorporate more than a thousand stills and clips (and he handles DP duties under his nom de lens, Peter Andrews), and The Last Interview includes excerpts from 64 songs. Though it never feels unnecessarily busy, there’s a lot going on, which suits the exuberant and thoughtful energy of the conversation. Lennon’s exultation in marriage and fatherhood, his excitement over recording new music and the possibility of touring again, and his ongoing love affair with New York (the subject of Kevin Macdonald’s One to One: John & Yoko) make the looming shadow of his murder all the more awful.
The radio interview would air as a memorial special. Howard Cosell would announce the news of Lennon’s death on Monday Night Football, a sound bite that Soderbergh, with his customary incisiveness and aversion to the maudlin, includes here. This network TV moment is fitting for a number of reasons, particularly because Lennon was avidly tuned in to American pop culture. It’s fascinating to listen to him citing a Barbara Walters interview, or to point out that Yoko Ono’s vocal gymnastics predated those of Lene Lovich or the B-52s’ Cindy Wilson, or to proclaim his love of disco.
That he had no use for categories and divisions — whether for music, religion, nationality or gender — goes to the core of who he was, his anti-war politics and his forward-looking optimism. “Let’s try and make the ’80s good,” he says at one point, hours before the ’80s would become unbearably painful. More powerful than an argument or a treatise, The Last Interview is an immersive experience. It will be a reminder for some and an eye-opener for others of why John Lennon mattered to people, and why his murder was so shattering.
Full credits
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Special Screenings) Production companies: Mishpookah Entertainment Group, Sugar23 Director: Steven Soderbergh Producer: Nancy Saslow Executive producers: Michael Sugar, David Hillman, Nancy Saslow, David Hudson Cinematographer: Peter Andrews Editor: Nancy Main Supervising producer: Jeremy Powers Creative director: Carolyn Carmines Archival producer: Lindsay Kelliher Technology partner: Meta Motion graphics and design: BigStar Motion Design 1 hour 37 minutesTHR Newsletters
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