 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
|
||
 |
 |
|
 |
Music DVDS John Lennon: Imagine 
 |
 |
|
 |
||||||||
 |
|
 |
|||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
|
 |
||||||||
| John Lennon: Imagine |
| By Matthew Hirtes | |
Monday, 14 November 2005 For someone who died over a quarter of a century ago, John Ono Lennon still makes a lot of headlines. Google News, for example, lists nigh-on 1,900 recent stories about the Working-Class Hero. Imagine that indeed.Narrated by John Lennon himself, the DVD draws on over 100 hours of interviews with the great man. Imagine tells the story of the one-time Beatle’s life up until his untimely death aged 40 at the hands of deranged fan, Mark Chapman. Eerily when asked how he expected to die in the 1960s, Lennon replied: "I’ll probably be popped off by some loony." We learn that John lost his mother twice. The first time was aged five as his merchant seaman father Alfred and mother Julia split up. His maternal aunt Mimi assumed custody of her nephew. Lennon, though, was reunited with his mother in his early teens. It was Julia Lennon who taught her son to play the banjo. From that John developed a love of guitar. Their relationship was prematurely ended, however, when Mrs Lennon was run over by a drunk off-duty policeman in July 1958 – when her only son was 17 years old. It was this tragedy which cemented his friendship with Paul McCartney, who at 14 lost his mother to breast cancer. After appearing on the same bill, Lennon invited McCartney to join the group he’d formed as a skiffle band in grammar school, the Quarry Men. With the addition of George Harrison, they became rock and rollers Johnny and the Moondogs before changing their name to The Silver Beetles and, finally, The Beatles. The DVD recalls The Beatles’ early career, from their days in Hamburg where their booking agent Allan Williams recalls local gangsters presenting crate after crate of ale to John and co. with the result that they invariably performed legless. On their return to Liverpool, they took up residency in The Cavern – an old cellar that had been used as an air-raid shelter in the war and which was later converted into a nightclub by Alan Sytner. It was at the Cavern that Brian Epstein first saw The Beatles play in November 1961. After introducing himself to the band in the dressing room after the gig he became their manager. Eight months later, he reveals, they secured a recording contract and released their first single, ‘Love Me Do’. As well as interviews with the likes of Williams and Epstein, we hear from first wife Cynthia Lennon who remembers a young Lennon walking around with "a look that said kill." Second wife Yoko Ono also makes an appearance, as does the headmaster of John Lennon’s grammar school, William Ernest Pobjoy. There’s footage of The Fab Four breaking America and the Beatlemania that ensued, a phenomenon John described as "like being in the eye of a hurricaine." We also see Lennon working with legendary producer Phil Spector in a studio he built himself on his Tittenhurst Estate in Ascot. Whilst the first disc offers a largely chronological account of the singer’s life, the second disc boasts 45 minutes of bonus features including a previously-unseen acoustic performance of ‘Imagine’. At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, John Lennon won't be making any more records. Yet, from beyond the grave, he'll continue to make news. With a legacy perfectly illustrated by this DVD, how can his legend do anything but live on? (4/5) Release Date: 14 November 2005  Imagine |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|||
|
|
|
|||
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
© 2004-2006 uk-fusion.com
All rights reserved. Editor: Afsheen Shaikh.
Powered by LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) |
|
 |
|
 |