One To One: John & Yoko

One to One: John & Yoko is a documentary about the experiences of Mr. Lennon and Ms. Ono in Greenwich Village during the early 1970s. I found it a fascinating and nostalgic time capsule. Not merely a focus on "The Smart Beatle" and his "Dragon Lady," it is also an educational snapshot of the turbulent political and cultural zeitgeist in post-Woodstock, post-"Summer of Love" America. Peripheral but significant "supporting players" include President Richard Nixon, radical activist Jerry Rubin, "Dylanologist" A.J. Weberman, Congresswoman and presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm, and "Beat" poet Allen Ginsberg. Contemporary television shows and TV ads are intercut with footage of John and Yoko. Two memorable vignettes are a TV news clip of Alabama Governor George Wallace being shot* and Nixon being activistically "sucker punched" by a member of the Ray Conniff Singers**.

The biggest impression that One to One: John & Yoko made on me was not made by the relationship between "The Two Virgins" or their activism or Lennon's music. Rather, it was made by the stubborn and nagging parallels between America 1972 and America 2025. Although much change has occurred during the past fifty-plus years, the irrefutable epigram by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr still applies: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" (The more things change, the more they stay the same.).

* Particularly indelible: a "man on the street" interview of a black man asked for his reaction to Wallace being shot. His terse reply: "I don't care."

** Nixon sat silently with a smile frozen on his face. Were DJT to be faced with such effrontery, he would probably be less equanimous: "Arrest her! Get her! Rough her up and get her the hell outta here!"