Borrowed Time

Director: Alan G Parker

The last words of Borrowed Time are the director’s own. Born with macrocephaly, Alan G Parker endured bullying throughout his childhood. John Lennon was, he says, his “salvation.” The film is about the era he remembers, the last decade or so of Lennon’s life , that ended abruptly with gunshots in 1980.

The title is from a song written by Lennon after surviving a storm at sea. It wasn’t released until 1984 (on the album Milk and Honey) but it was recorded during sessions for Double Fantasy, Lennon’s collaboration with his wife Yoko Ono. According to music journalist Chris Salewicz, this “wasn’t dreadful.” The insistent reggae beat disguises the banality of the words – the point being you never know what’s going to happen.

Borrowed Time is a kaleidoscope of voices – witnesses , acquaintances and writers. It’s a pity each one is only named once – it’s impossible to remember who everyone is. Also, Parker assumes his audience will be old – or knowledgeable – enough to need no explanation of the ‘lost weekend ‘ (eighteen months) or A Toot and a Snore in 74-events of half a century ago. On the other hand the constant change of voices seems designed for modern attention spans; the film is never boring. Most of the speakers are male, and those who knew him are now considerably older than Lennon, a callow forty when he died. Time gentrifies even the rebellious. A sixteen-year-old Vinny Apice, now a Heavy Metal drumming legend, left his high school class after being told off for drumming on his desk – the night before he’d been doing background clapping for John Lennon. Nowadays he prefers not to say what the F stood for in his first band , BOMF. Several speakers break down. Music producer Gerry Cagle says ‘I apologise’ with a soldierly dignity – not really the Lennon vibe at all.

The story begins in 1966 when Lennon met Yoko Ono. The British public was not impressed – as Lennon’s biographer Philip Norman points out, only twenty years after the World War II there was considerable anti-Japanese prejudice. Ono comes in for a lot of disparagement, with journalists and friends complaining about her blocking access – Ray Connolly found the only way to communicate with Lennon directly was by telegram. Connolly is a bit dismissive of Ono and her “feminist thing.” Anyway he “never believed all that stuff about baking bread” and the couple generally living a wholesome humble life (in one of the grandest buildings in New York). “They had staff.”

Together the couple embraced political activism, most famously with their highly innovative Bed-in for Peace. There is a suggestion that Lennon would involve himself in any old cause that looked cool – partly “from a genuine desire to end war” but partly “for publicity.” Several people mention naiveté, citing his support for Michael X and the IRA. There is a clip of the interview where he imagines a better world, run by enlightened people like himself, smirkingly addressing the imaginary Tory sceptic “Mrs Grundy of South Birmingham on Toast,” who might not be reassured by some of his other pronouncements. On his notorious comment about being more popular than Jesus: “people who know me, they know that’s just how I talk, y’know.” On education: “the values didn’t mean a thing.” On politics: “we’re being ruled by maniacs for maniacal ends.” None of these suggest deep or constructive thinking.

We see how Lennon’s political activity , combined with the minor drugs offense that was almost mandatory for music celebrities in the 60’s, make him somewhat unwelcome in the United States. He is vocally against the “one administration in the history of the White House that has enemies lists”. Nixon wanting him out of the way because of his dangerous influence on newly enfranchised eighteen-year-olds, has “no idea,” according to Anthony deCurtis, “of the kind of hoopla deporting John Lennon would cause.” Then Nixon resigns and Lennon, attended by a crowd of supporters, gets his Green Card. The authorities can rest assured that he won’t become a charge on the state since he is “the owner of several valuable copyrights, various properties and a herd of cows.”

Most people over forty remember where they were when they heard of Lennon’s death. Alan J Weiss, then a fledgling journalist, has a marvellous story of right time, right place. Two days earlier, the late Andy Peebles had interviewed Lennon in New York. On landing at Heathrow he called his mum. He never forgot the sight of the phone dangling in the next door booth, where his producer had just heard the news.

Presumably because of the valuable copyrights there is no Beatles music in Borrowed Time, which still ends energetically, with No More Good News by JoJo and the Teeth playing as the credits roll . Lennon comes across as celebrity rather than genius, but also as someone who was loved and liked, was hugely important to countless people, and to some, indeed, salvation.

Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade opens in UK cinemas from 2nd May with an exclusive Director’s Cut available on the Icon Film Channel on the same day.