Director John Scheinfeld likes to dig – in news archives, network vaults, in the well-known or clandestine collections of devotees. Partner in discovery David Leaf calls him the Hercule Poirot of documentarians.
Early in “The U.S. vs. John Lennon,” their revealing, often entertaining new film about the Nixon administration’s attempts to have the former Beatle deported because of his anti-war activism, Scheinfeld’s dogged excavation pays off.
Remember the hullabaloo about Lennon proclaiming the Fab Four bigger than Jesus? Well, while the sight of the ensuing record burning and radio pontificating might strike a familiar chord, it’s the film’s rarer footage of Lennon talking about what he did or did not say about the power of popular culture that delivers.
“There was a 20- minute roll of film we found in the ABC News archives that had been mislabeled,” says Scheinfeld, “It was never developed, never transferred.”
Cultural archaeology is only one of the skills the tag team brings to its films. During their 13-year collaboration, Scheinfeld and Leaf have made a number of intimate documentaries about performers, including “Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of ‘Smile”‘ and “Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?”
For the filmmakers, trust is fundamental. “Our feeling going into this is we always try to make the most definitive piece possible. We felt we could not do that in this case unless we got Yoko’s (Ono) cooperation and participation in several ways,” Scheinfeld says. “Over a period of time she came to trust us.”
Leaf’s initial interview with Lennon’s widow led to three extensive ones. Ono granted filmmakers exclusive access to material. And as the executor of Lennon’s estate, she let them use his music.
“She allowed us to get remixes of 20- some Lennon songs,” Scheinfeld says. They took the lead vocal off some of those works to create a backing track. Resultant instrumental tracks became the movie’s score.
“Every sort of feeling”
“When people see the film those are all John’s tracks,” says Scheinfeld. “We found in his music every sort of feeling we wanted: poignance or tragedy or suspense or humor.”
Ono’s intimate involvement leads to an obvious question: Does the reliance on the kindness of subjects cloud a film’s perspective? For instance, the movie doesn’t touch on the 18 months Lennon had an affair in Los Angeles. (“A well-documented relationship with another woman that,” Scheinfeld says, “Yoko had orchestrated.”)
It’s a quandary the filmmaker is accustomed to.
“We’ve worked with a lot of estates and artists. It’s a delicate balance. At some point they’re going to say, ‘Does that need to be in there? Did you need to say that? Why do you want to do that?’ But I think part of the relationship that develops in these cases is that we’re responsible filmmakers, and people feel they can entrust their legacy to us. You have to gain the trust of the people. How we do that is how we do that. But it does not impact on the final version. In this case, we absolutely made the film we wanted to make.”
When “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” premiered at the Telluride Film Festival over the Labor Day weekend, the audience sang the songs. During that same festival an unscientific, but typically spot-on, survey of gondola passengers made it clear the doc was a crowd pleaser of a deeper sort.
“A guy came up to me afterward and was crying,” recalls Scheinfeld. Why the tears? Because, the man told the director, “the world has not changed. It’s just so sad.”
One reason the audience responds emotionally, Scheinfeld believes, is because the documentary is intended to immerse them in those turbulent waters. “It takes them back to a time that they can’t articulate, but it’s real visceral.
“I think for the people who lived through that time, it’s a very unresolved time. There was so much going on that would challenge us in terms of ethics and values and morals and politics and direction. When the radical left and the anti-war movement sort of fizzled out and Nixon and Watergate took center stage, there wasn’t any firm conclusion.
“And I think some feel: What a great time, it was so cool to be on the barricades, feeling something and trying to do something to change the world. That was a rare moment. I think there’s a nostalgic component, as well as the unresolved thing.”
Lennon “would have loved” it At the Toronto festival, Ono said publicly what she’d told filmmakers after they screened the film for her. “Of all the docs that have been made about John, this is the one he would have loved.”
In attendance at a later festival screening were people intimate with the blowback of saying what you think: Dixie Chick Martie Maguire, and Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, directors of the upcoming documentary “Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing.”
“We all went out for a drink afterward to talk about politics and government and our movies,” says Scheinfeld. “We overlap a bit in the issues that we deal with. We all felt we were kindred spirits.”
For all its talking heads hashing out the politics of troubled era, the documentary’s singular presence remains Lennon. Scheinfeld and Leaf deliver a tender tribute to a performer who seemed to trust his ethical gut, no matter what discomfort it might cause him.
“He said what he said,” the filmmaker says. “No handlers, no spin. He did it without fear of consequences. What you saw was what he was feeling at the time. I think that’s heroic in any period.”
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
