John Lennon was not only a singer and song writer, he was also into making home movies and art films. There are possibly hundreds of hours of footage laying around just waiting to be cleaned up and put out for future projects that Yoko might come up with. Some of the home movies have been made public and were actually made into films, such as the home movies that were filmed during the bed in for peace and the massive home movie of ‘imagine.’ Everything was filmed at one point, from recording sessions, to eating breakfast, he was filmed buying a summer house to put on his own man made Island (he had created a man made island in the middle of a lake at his ascot home) and he was even filmed using the bathroom! Some of the filming that was done all around the world was put into the films I mentioned earlier, but a lot of it has never been seen.
(photo from google images)
Filming would continue in his life right up until the end, recording promotional videos for the album ‘double fantasy’ the videos included John Lip syncing to ‘im losing you’ in the studio. Another of the videos shows him and Yoko walking in Central Park, where he is wearing a very thick padded silver, fur collared jacket. And another video showed John and Yoko making love in white bed, in a white room, with John putting one of his iconic beatle boots on a plinth while undressing. In 1969 John and Yoko made a film, lasting just over an hour titled ‘Rape.’ The movie was from the point of view of the main female character, while she is followed by the camera man.
(photo from google images)
On 10th Sep 1969 the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London hosted the premières of two films by John and Yoko, the two films were ‘Self-Portrait’ and ‘Mr & Mrs Lennon's Honeymoon.’ Three other (earlier filmed) films were also shown at the event, including Rape, Smile and Two Virgins. Yoko and John made a film called ‘erection’ what was a speeded up stop animation style film or a building being built. However the title of this movie might be mistaken for the film ‘self portrait’ film. The movie was not one of John drawing one of his cartoon faces of himself, oh no, it was much more fitting to the name ‘erection.’ During the 42 minute long film a camera in close view to a naked John Lennon captures the Beatle, slowly achieving an erection. A film that most female Beatles fans from a few years ago would have killed to see, was however probably one of the longest 45 minutes that most film critics ever have had to endure.
(photo from google images)
The other movie shown (Mr & Mrs Lennon's Honeymoon) was what now is shown as the bed in for peace film that does the rounds every year around Johns birthday (usually on The sky satellite channel SkyArts) During the film event two people sat in a white bag beneath the screen at the ICA throughout the evening, leading many to believe the couple was actually present. John videoed a lot of his life with Yoko, and he even filmed himself playing guitar, a practice that many youtubers still do today! This one video where John is playing for the camera became one of the best known home videos to resurface mainly because of the conspiracy theory that was built up around it. It was said that the video was proof they Lennon was alive and never died in 1980, with some people even saying that it was filmed on a webcam. Of course this is false but it drew a lot of attention to Lennon’s home videos.
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