On December 8, 1980, the same day John Lennon was fatally shot, the music legend and Yoko Ono conducted an extensive interview with a San Francisco radio team from their residence at New York’s Dakota Apartments.
The couple was publicizing their latest album “Double Fantasy,” but their two-hour discussion covered numerous topics. Despite being told “no Beatles questions,” both Lennon and Ono spoke with remarkable openness. That same day, Annie Leibovitz captured the iconic photograph of an unclothed Lennon embracing Ono.
The conversation reveals intimate details as both artists, especially Lennon, discuss love, their partnership, artistic expression, post-Beatles life, parenting their young son, composing music in bed, and various other subjects. At 40 years old, Lennon appears to have achieved profound understanding.
“I feel like nothing happened before today,” Lennon remarked.
Steven Soderbergh has transformed these preserved recordings into “John Lennon: The Last Interview,” a documentary that strips away mystique from Lennon and Ono similar to how “Get Back” did for the Beatles. The movie premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival.
“I was just so compelled by their generosity of spirit throughout the conversation,” Soderbergh explained during a Saturday interview in Cannes. “It’s like the world took place in one day, in this apartment.”
Creating the film presented a significant challenge. Soderbergh was determined to preserve the audio recording. While he discovered methods to provide visual elements for much of the documentary, a substantial portion remained where the discussion becomes more abstract.
“I worked on everything that could be solved except that for as long as I could,” Soderbergh says. “Then there was the inevitable moment of: OK, but really what are we going to do? We just started playing and ran out of time and money. That’s where the Meta piece came in.”
Soderbergh agreed to utilize Meta’s artificial intelligence technology to generate visuals for those segments, comprising approximately 10% of the documentary. When Soderbergh revealed this information earlier this year, it created significant controversy. One of the nation’s most respected directors was employing AI? In a Beatles member documentary, nonetheless?
The AI sequences (heavily criticized by Cannes reviewers) appear relatively ordinary and resemble standard visual effects. However, Soderbergh positioned himself at the center of an industry-wide discussion regarding AI applications in cinema. For Soderbergh, who has filmed movies using iPhones, this represents a dialogue he welcomes.
SODERBERGH: Transparency is so important (in) that the world outside of the creative context, we’re not aware of the extent that this is being used and used to manipulate us. We don’t know because they’re not telling. We find out after, by accident, by some whistle blower. I’m like my own whistle blower: “This is what he’s doing.”
SODERBERGH: I knew what was coming. I take it very seriously, and I understand why people have an emotional response to this subject. As I’ve said before, I feel like I owe people the best version of whatever art I’m trying to make and total transparency about how I’m doing it. But, yeah, you don’t say yes to Meta offering you these tools and offering to finish the film and not know you’re going to come in for some heat. That was part of the deal.
SODERBERGH: I think most jobs that matter when you’re making a movie cannot be performed by this tech and never will be performed by this tech. As it becomes possible for anybody to create something that meets a certain standard of technical perfection, then imperfection becomes more valuable and more interesting. We haven’t seen yet someone with a certain amount of creative credibility go full-metal AI on something, and see how people react. I think it’s necessary. How do you know where the line is until somebody crosses it? I don’t think what I’m doing crosses it. Some people may disagree. I don’t know where my line is yet. I’m waiting to see.
SODERBERGH: Circles of light that come out of nowhere, things like that. A black rose that turns into a Busby Berkeley thing and then a red rose. I wasn’t very articulate to the people I was working with. It was hard to describe the things I wanted to see. The good part about this technology was at least ability to have something in front of me quickly that I could respond to.
SODERBERGH: I’ve determined my rule is: It has to be necessary. Is it the only way to accomplish what I want to see? Is it truly the best way to do it? That’s the real question. You’re going to see a lot of people doing stuff with AI that fail those two challenges.
SODERBERGH: I needed a way to follow them in flight visually, or I’m not doing my job. It’s hard to judge how long it will take us to find homeostasis with this technology. I think we will. Just looking at this technology in the movie making business, each department has or will have a very different relationship with it. I’ll have a different relationship than a writer, than an actor, than the costume designer, the production designer, the sound effects people.
Each creative person is going to have their own prism and be affected by it in different ways. Our inherent desire to have a simple template for how this is to be approached is part of the problem. I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t think there’s a one-size fits all.
SODERBERGH: Especially his burning desire to destroy the male rock star myth — at a time when that was not the mood anyone else was in. That’s inspiring. What I hope young people who see it get out of it is: This guy told the truth about everything from the jump, right up through the last day of his life. He just was built that way. And he was constructive. He was very opinionated but also very thoughtful and all in the aid of: Can we do this better? Can we do a better version of human beings on this planet?
