Borrowed Time – Lennon’s last decade
Illustration: Geezer & Blonde Production
Here’s some information regarding the upcoming documentary film, “Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade” (cinema release: May/June 2025). This is a summarized edit of Facebook posts by the director, Alan G Parker.
Director Alan G Parker: Initially, way back in the summer of 2018, with a successful Beatles movie (“It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond“) under our belts, we thought about making an in-depth movie about the last 12 months of John Lennon’s life, to that end a lot of research was done and plans made, with the arrival of COVID and a much longer research period than we thought we originally had, we pretty much scrapped all those plans, feeling like that story had been told to the nth degree and that there were no genuine conclusions to be reached anyway…
But, over time, lots of people who had seen our Beatles movie and knew John Lennon pretty well were queuing up to be in our new movie. The plan (by May 2021) was to interview as many people who knew John well as possible in-depth, none of them are getting any younger so the time was right to get their truth on film. We also interviewed a select number of Beatles authors and scholars because I always find they are better with dates, times and places.
By the end of 2022 we had successfully interviewed over 55 people, and following a Christmas break we hit the studio in 2023, by now there was no point in rushing “Borrowed Time” we knew we had something and so the edit was relaxed and a long format fan film started to come together, it runs 3 hours and 28 minutes, and although hard core Lennon fans will love it, we felt that what we also needed was a more commercially accessible version.
Like all documentaries not everybody can make the final cut, but here’s a list of those (interviewed) who have made the final cut; Steve Turner/Chris Charlesworth/Chris Salewicz/Tony Bramwell/Tariq Ali/Andy Peebles/Helen Anderson/David Stark/Peter ‘Dougal’ Butler/Ray Connolly/Tony Palmer/Chris Welch/Barry Miles/Philip Norman/John Dunbar/Bob Harris OBE/Earl Slick/Jay Bergen/Alan Weiss/Henry ‘The Horse’ Smith/Kenneth Womack/Jon Smith/Anthony DeCurtis/Dave Sholin/Laurie Kaye/Vinny Appice/Pamela Des Barres/Gerry Cagle/Robert Morgan/Pat Gilbert/Mark Cunningham & Matt Snow.
In the late Summer of 2024, following lots of conversations about what we were looking for in terms of the second version we went back to the studio, this time round we created a version of “Borrowed Time” that I’m incredibly proud of, which although running some 98 minutes less than the original really stands up as a story about Lennon’s later years. So much so that I began referring to the original version as “The Directors Rough Cut”, they are two quite different films.
Our plan now is to use one for the official release and the other as a sort of long format DVD/Blu-Ray extra! And in all honesty I can’t wait for you to see both… It’s been a long, sometimes frustrating, at times annoying road, but now it’s ready for release. And I for one can’t wait.
I’d like to personally thank the teams at Lucky Cat Post Production and Digital Distortion, both situated in Poland Street (“It’s a sign I tell you!”), for their incredible help in pulling together the new cinema/TV cut of “Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade”, which will be heading to you in 2025 in two rather different versions, buy the DVD or Blu-Ray and you’ll see!
Cinema/TV cut (2 hours/8 mins)
DVD/Blu-Ray Directors Cut (3 hours/28 mins)
What, no Jack Douglas? Among others.
Or Fred Seaman (even tho’ he’s a very dubious source, he was still there).
The most curious thing about this story is the lack of a story! From what Alan G. Parker has let us know, it will be a documentary of interviews, a bunch of people talking (we’ve seen this before) and what else? The director doesn’t give any clues about the content. Will we have previously unseen images? Will the “missing” film of the Double Fantasy recording sessions be shown? What will we have on the Borrowed Time soundtrack? The director didn’t reveal anything and doesn’t mention Sean Lennon, who is the head of his father’s estate. Without his involvement, what would we have? If he had been involved, what would we have? The saga of Beatles fans is one of eternal unanswered questions…
Yes, this is also my concern. If this turns out to just be a collection of talking heads clips, we’re not going to find it very engaging, however useful these are as archival material.
It covers “Lennon’s Last DECADE” apparently so there’s heaps of footage available for a 2 hour documentary. Sounds like a rehash of the 1988 Imagine Documentary with the Beatles era footage removed.
I must say 3 things regarding how I felt reading this post and the prospect of seeing your upcoming film.
Joyful, Intrigued, and yet Sorrowful. Knowing that upon watching it, it will be gut wrenching because to those who loved him near and afar, the fact remains he is no longer with us. That fact is still to this day, almost 44 yrs later, very very hard for my heart to accept.
Bless you going forward! I will be watching.
No Jack Douglas or David Geffen. Or band members from the Double Fantasy album. Makes this film irrelevant.
There is one (though I get your point) : Earl Slick
With no indication that this project has been given the nod by Sean/Yoko, I doubt we’re going to get much that we haven’t heard or seen before. I’ll eat my hat if there is any actual John music or Beatles music in the film. I can’t get excited about this.
No mention of close friend and confidant to J&Y Elliot Mintz. That might be because he has finally written his memoirs entitled ‘We all shine on’.
Personally, I think its important that the Lennono mythologizing of the reconciliation and the househusband period was challenged by the likes of Seamon and Rosen’s summary of the Lennon diaries. There was some weird stuff at that time for sure.
It’ll be just journalists talking and the odd scab here and there who was in a room with John for 5 seconds. We know this story, we know what he was doing up until his death, what is the point of this?! He went into a quiet period to bring up his son, recorded two albums worth of material and a some demos and then he was sadly killed. How can spin that out anymore?!
One thing the documentary might do, is to examine the semi-myth, still being repeated here, that John went into musical retirement just to raise his son. There is no doubt that that played a part, but, how big a part, really? Firstly, John did not have a contract, and there were not many offers coming in, and nothing to match his stature. No one was making big overtures to anyone but Paul. George and Ringo were to be dropped within a couple oy years, Ringo as an individual and George via Dark Horse. None of John’s albums were selling much above break-even since ‘Imagine’. As John himself said, regarding the contractual obligation ‘Shaved Fish’ – “nobody could give a damn at the record companies because they weren’t… you know, that big [hits]. Big enough for them to be interested.”
Even if he had had a record contract, ‘Rock N’ Roll’ and ‘Shaved Fish’ were still fresh, so there would have been no imperative for a new release for at least a year, more than enough time to “raise the child.” But what raising? Any parent will tell you that the first year is sleep, feed, burp. In fact, it could well be argued that John went back to work – “this housewife wants a job” – just at the time when Sean would have been looking to engage actively with a man of his father’s intelligence, scholastically, artistically, and playfully.
Given that when John WAS working, his work rate was not exactly onerous, adds to the credibility strain. No concerts, except the non-sold-out pair in 1972, let alone tours. “Mind Games”, “Walls And Bridges” and “Rock N’ Roll” took 6 weeks each to record, including rehearsals.
While there seems no doubt that John took to being a home-father – although he seemed to have no trouble continuing to have little to no interest in seeing Julian for most of this half-decade – to say he gave the music career up for that is stretching it too far. Just because he said he did, does not make it so; what it does is to make it an acceptable cover story. Remember, John also claimed “not to have touched” a guitar in all this time. We now know, from the decades-long drip-feed of home-cassette recordings, that he was working on songs frequently, but that John had great difficulty coming up with complete numbers in this period. A melody line here with no lyric, two thirds of a song with no chorus or middle eight.
The truer story is much likelier to be that, the record industry was by now extremely ambivalent towards John, and in no small part because of the omnipresent chance of getting a “Some Time In New York City” co-production (which is of course what Geffen ended up receiving). At the same time, John was unable to put together cohesive music of the quality and quality needed. He had the large Apple settlement. He had a new son, and Sean gave him the wall that meant he could close his bridge. For all his hardman credentials, John always seemed to need someone to hide behind in some way, be it Yoko, Klein, or nuns at Manilla airport. To claim he needed a break from the music industry is really taking the salt cellar to overdrive – if one added up the musical ‘work’ John did in the last 10 years of his life, i.e. studio, stage and media, it would barely run to 6 months of full working days.
Having said all that – as history reminds us every time we think of him, for both their sakes, thank goodness John did have that break with Sean.
Well, Maureen Cleave (wasn’t it?) did refer to him as “the laziest man in England” back in her notorious 1966 interview (the “Jesus” one).
I think John just didn’t feel very motivated for a long while. And let his natural laziness take over (believe me, that’s easy to do when no one’s calling you up to get back to work!)