As we get further into forever, there are still some strawberries left in the fields to be enjoyed in the Beatle bio-bonanza Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, directed by pop culture doc-master Alan G. Parker. After a gorgeously animated opening, the film starts with stories about the planning for the 1981 concert tour John Lennon never lived to go on. The interviewees express their marvel over the stage design ideas Lennon had, many of which were several decades ahead of their time. After almost everything is solidified for the greatest show ever seen, Lennon is murdered in New York City.
The interviews then jump back 10 years or so prior, when the Beatles were splintering as a group while at the height of their fame. Reporter and Lennon family confidant Ray Connolly recalls Lennon secretly letting him know that the Beatles had broken up months before it was public knowledge. Connolly kept the news secret per Lennon’s wishes, denying himself the biggest scoop of his career.
“…stories about the planning for the 1981 concert tour John Lennon never lived to go on…”
Lennon and Yoko Ono set up shop in New York City, though his immigration process was jammed by Nixon in response to Lennon’s vocal opposition to the Vietnam War. The start of the years-long “Lost Weekend” period, where Lennon slides into self-indulgence with a side of heroin. Interviewees, including Bob Deutsch, John Dunbar, Pat Gilbert, Tony Bramwell, Laurie Kaye, and Henry the Horse Smith, detail the final years of one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century and give us a side of Lennon not seen before.
There has been something of a style escalation arms race in the rock-doc realm, a constant battle to come up with innovations to the standard talking heads and concert clips format. I have been guilty of feeding into this compulsion to radicalize the form, rewarding those that break the rules and insipidly low lighting those that adhere by them. So that is why I was initially flummoxed by Parker’s classic simplicity in the construction of Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade.
"…overflows with warmth and depth for its subject."
