One of the most radical and influential works of experimental television produced by the famous couple of the late 60s, Yoko Ono and John Lennon.

In November 1968 work began on one of one of John & Yoko’s most ambitious film ventures, a 75-minute mini-feature called Rape. It starred Eva Majlata, a 21 year old Hungarian actress who couldn’t speak English. She cannot escape the prying attentions of the camera which follows her around the streets of London, through a park, allowing her no privacy and almost causing her to walk into the path of a truck. She attempts to escape in a taxi, but is still followed. She is eventually cornered in an apartment from which she apparently cannot escape and her tearful pleas to the camera remain ignored. Rape was shot when John and Yoko were both at Great Charlotte Street Hospital following Yoko’s miscarriage. The cameraman was Nick Knowland, who worked on most of John and Yoko’s productions.

The film received its world premiere on Austrian Television on 31st March 1969. That year it was also shown at the Montreux Television Festival and the Mannheim Film Festival. A day after the Austrian TV broadcast John and Yoko held a press conference in Vienna. John commented: “We are showing how all of us are exposed and under pressure in our contemporary world. This isn’t just about the Beatles. What is happening to this girl on the screen is happening in Biafra, Vietnam, everywhere.” The theme of the relentless, clinical camera lens, ‘raping’ the privacy of individuals or groups for the entertainment of the viewing public intrigued critic Willie Frischauer, who wrote in the Evening Standard; “This film does for the age of television what Franz Kafka’s The Trial did for the age of totalitarianism.”

1.40GB | 640×480 | mpg

https://nitro.download/view/0ABA498DDB857B3/YOKO_ONO_RAPE.mp4
https://nitro.download/view/EFA108F35E4E535/Rape.1969.Eng.srt

Language:English, Hungarian
Subtitles:English

The post Yoko Ono & John Lennon – Rape (1969) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
What a perfect film…..short and simple, Ono takes a camera and a boom mike onto a hot air balloon, kicks the rope, and starts the camera and lets us watch as it goes above the clouds for a 17 minute shot. Key things to notice: A roll of 16mm film films only 14 minutes yet the film runs for 17, meaning somewhere in the clouds Ono had another camera loaded and started when the first one ran out, yet somehow the splice is not noticeable and there weren’t any computers at the time to fix this sort of thing…..all i can say is optical printing tricks at its best. The last shot, as the balloon rises above the clouds, the wind silences, and the sun becomes visible, is alone worth checking out this timeless classic of experimental film.

https://nitro.download/view/3C0E96FA3200116/Ono,_Yoko_-_1970_-_Apotheosis.mpg

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post John Lennon & Yoko Ono – Apotheosis (1970) first appeared on Cinema of the World.