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Linda Eastman, McCartney’s future wife, lingers a little longer, circulates and photographs the band. Their image is in contrast to that of other Beatles partners – model white women in chic outfits who occasionally rush in with kisses, nod encouragingly and slip away inconspicuously. In her text project “Grapefruit” from 1964, a kind of recipe book for staging art experiences, she instructs her audience “not to look at Rock Hudson, but only at Doris Day”, and in “The Beatles: Get Back” she directs them Eye away from the band and yourself.
![the spectacle yoko ono beatles the spectacle yoko ono beatles](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8p9eJ6KfRUE/UFK6s9AGIwI/AAAAAAAADY8/NbgjKTRn9Tk/s1600/PlasticOnoBandTorontoRevival1969.jpg)
“I was scared to be something like that.” She later dedicated her spiked song “Potbelly Rocker” from 1973 to the “women of nameless rockers”. In a 1997 interview, she commented on the status of women in rock in the 1960s: “My first impression was that they were all wives and kind of sat in the next room while the boys talked,” she said. For her part, she was vigilant in order to escape the typical role of the artist woman. In the documentary, McCartney politely complains that his songwriting with Lennon is disrupted by Ono’s omnipresence. (If Lennon’s distancing from the band was influenced by his desire to explore other pursuits, including his personal and creative relationship with Ono, that was his choice.) But she got involved. ‘Drive my car’: In this quiet Japanese masterpiece, a widower travels to Hiroshima to direct an experimental version of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya”.
![the spectacle yoko ono beatles the spectacle yoko ono beatles](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ee/b4/2c/eeb42c5c631a386cb64a25859bbe6a69.jpg)
‘Pass’: Set in the 1920s, the film revolves around two African American women, childhood friends who can and do present themselves as white.‘Spencer’: Kristen Stewart plays a tortured, rebellious Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s answer to “The Crown”.‘Summer of the Soul’: Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples and others shine in Questlove’s documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival.I was watching intimate, long-lost footage of the world’s most famous band preparing for their final gig and I couldn’t stop watching Yoko Ono sit around doing nothing. My attention kept wandering to her corner of the picture. But as the hours passed and Ono stayed – painting at an easel, chewing a pastry, flipping through a Lennon fan magazine – I was impressed with her perseverance, then intrigued by the provocation of her existence, and finally blinded by her performance. Why is she there? I begged my television. The huge set only highlights the ridiculousness of their proximity. When George Harrison goes away and leaves the band for a short time, Ono is there, who restlessly whines into his microphone.Īt first I found Ono’s omnipresence in documentary films bizarre, even unsettling. Later, when the group squeezes into a recording booth, Ono is there, wedged between Lennon and Ringo Starr, wordlessly unwrapping a piece of chewing gum and working it between Lennon’s fingers. Lennon slips behind the piano and Ono is there, her head hanging over his shoulder. When the band begins “Don’t Let Me Down”, Ono is there reading a newspaper. When Paul McCartney starts playing “I’ve Got a Feeling”, Ono is there sewing a furry item in her lap. She crouches within reach of John Lennon, her puzzled face turned to him like a plant growing to light.
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At the beginning of “The Beatles: Get Back”, Peter Jackson’s almost eight-hour documentary about the creation of the album “Let It Be”, the band forms a tight circle in the corner of a film soundstage.