Film The U.S. vs. John Lennon (David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, 2006)

Tonight, my wife and I saw The U.S. vs. John Lennon at the Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC. What a film! It is a documentary about the life of John Lennon and his leadership in the peace movement during the Vietnam War. The U.S. government tries to deport him and, finding that he had a small charge of marijuana possession filed back in England, uses that as a pretext to demand his departure. Eventually, Lennon's lawyer countersues and proves that the Nixon administration has conspired against him, with people from the very top of the government involved. It was a moving film where the pace was great to (re)learn important biographical and historical aspects of the man and times, and the songs rekindled fond memories for me. Well worth watching!

November 15: I found a nicely done video montage, below, of John Lennon set to his beautiful (it always moves me; they played this at the candelit vigil after his murder) song, Imagine, done in a pan and zoom Ken Burns style. A music video of the song is also available, and I also found a contemporary anti-war video montage based largely on Imagine by artist John Callaghan of Cal-TV (the video is set to Imagine This by WaxAudio; the video is decidedly political with some violent images and starts with some offensive language)