A new documentary, pieced together from unseen footage and carrying all-new interviews with those present at the time and nearest to the star, promises to tell the ex-Beatle’s post-Beatles come-down story that, it seems, – so far – the big names have successfully kept under cover.
New documentary, Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade, comes via Alan G. Parker the maker of Hello Quo and It Was Fifty Years Ago Today… Sgt Pepper And Beyond and features classic interviews with all the usual suspects (Lennon, Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney) plus new, perhaps more candid chat from Tony Bramwell the Apple Records CEO, Earl Slick, Lennon’s guitarist), Vinny Appice, his drummer, and tour manager Henry ‘The Horse’ Smith.
Of course, we’re all familiar with tales of Beatles sublime success. There’s their own official and suitably epic Anthology series. We’ve Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison-focused Living In The Material World delivering its ‘unique perspective’, and Peter Jackson’s tragedy-turned-triumph Get Back, all telling tales that fit a known narrative and leave a smile on your face.
And with Sam Mendes set to turn the birth and subsequent success of the fab four into four, standalone, movie-each, superhero-style origin stories, it seems that the gilding of the Beatles’ lily only seems set to continue.
However it’s worth remembering that in between The Beatles rumoured break-up in 1970 (and eventual legal confirmation in 1974) and Lennon’s shocking murder in 1980, the star had become an increasingly divisive figure. Instant Karma onwards, Lennon would both delight and confuse his fans, growing increasingly irritated by his circumstance and our inability to understand just what he was all about.
And as the 1980’s approached an increasingly distant Lennon had both fans and an increasing number of naysayers pondering just what the former Beatle might do with the decade.
Unfortunately, our ability to collectively discover Lennon’s bigger plan was cruelly stolen from us, which perhaps makes Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade the most intriguing and, potentially, enlightening of any and all of the modern-day Beatles stories.
And its teaser certainly teases…
In it we see references to drug taking, Lennon’s irritation, rudeness and bad temper and his contempt for his former Beatles band-mates. There’s the promise of a vast, technically ground-breaking world tour that could perhaps have set the record straight, and throughout it all there’s the small matter of Yoko Ono’s presence and influence to thoroughly debate and discuss.
It certainly has the potential to be an intriguing, fresh and perhaps surprising perspective on an increasingly familiar story.
Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade is out in UK cinemas from 2 May, 2025.
