A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers

I know. It's incredible, isn't it? Of course I didn't know what exactly a high-speed camera would do. I knew in general, but I didn't know what the exact effect would be. And, of course, I never would have known unless George Maciunas had rented a high-speed camera and called me up. George was a very interesting person. He had a very artistic mind. I never knew why he didn't create his own art; he always wanted to take the role of helping create other people's work. But that combination was very good; he not only executed what we wanted, he gave us the opportunity to look into the areas we would never have looked into. He had that kind of mind.

MacDonald:

With

Two Virgins

you and John began collaborating on films and in the next few years there was a whole series of collaborations. Judging from the credits on the films, I assume that one or the other of you would get an idea and then both of you would work the idea out, and whoever had the original idea for a particular filmthat film was theirs. Normally, the directorial credit is considered the most important one, but on these films there's a more basic credit. It might be "Film by Yoko Ono," then "Directed and produced by John and Yoko." Am I correct: was it that whoever had the original

concept

for the film, that's whose film it was?

Ono:

Yes.

MacDonald:

I remember reading years ago in a collection of

Rolling Stone

interviews that when you and John got involved with politics and in particular with the Bed-In, it was partly because Peter Watkins had written you a letter. Is that how you remember it?

Ono:

Well, yes, Peter Watkins's letter was a confrontation to us, and at the time we had a conversation about what we felt we had been doing politically: "Well, I was doing this. Yes, I was doing that." As a Beatle, John was always asked, "What is your position about the Vietnam War," or something else; and I think that their manager, Brian Epstein, was very concerned that they wouldn't make any statements, and so they didn't make any direct statements. But a covert statement was made through an album cover that was censored, as you know. And I was standing in Trafalgar Square, in a bag, for peace and all that. So separately we had that awareness, and we were expressing it in the ways that we could. I was doing it more freely because it was easier for me. So we were comparing notes after getting the letter, and then we were saying, "Well what about doing something together," which was the Bed-In (and the film

Bed-In

), so Peter Watkins's letter definitely did mean something to us.

MacDonald:

How much control did you (or you and John) have over the way

Bed-In

looks? You credit a large crew on that film. What was your part in the final film, other than as performers?

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Ono:

We always maintained careful control over the finished films. I was generally in charge of editing, which I did for that film, and for others, frame by frame. I mean I would have a film editor working with meI don't know the technologybut I would be very specific about what I wanted. When Jonas [Mekas] did the John and Yoko screenings at Anthology [Anthology Film Archives], I had three editing machines and editors brought into our hotel room, and I edited

Bed-In

there because of the deadline.

I enjoy the editing part of filmmaking most of all; that's where the films really get made.

MacDonald: Rape

is often talked about as a parable of the media intruding into your lives, but when I saw it again the other week, it struck me as very similar to pieces in

Grapefruit

.

Ono:

Well, they keep saying that. I'll tell you what happened. By the time that I actually got to make the film, John and I were together, and the reporters were hounding us, but the

Rape

concept was something that I thought of before John and I got together.

MacDonald:

In

Grapefruit

there's "Back Piece II," a part of which is "Walk behind a person for four hours."

Ono:

It was that kind of thing, right. But it was also a film script ["Film No. 5 (Rape, or Chase)"].

MacDonald:

How candid is the

Rape

footage? It no longer

looks

candid to me.

Ono: