Lennon films emerge as 30th anniversary approaches

This fall has already seen a film about John Lennon released in theatres and now PBS is getting into the act with a couple of biographical offerings.

Just last month, the movie Nowhere Boy traced the childhood traumas of John Lennon, focusing on his troubled relationship with his birth mother and the aunt who raised him.

If that film established Lennon had Mommy issues, then Lennon Naked, a film that premiered on PBS last night, proves he had Daddy issues too.

Lennon’s dad walked out of his life when John was six and only reappeared after the Beatles hit it big. John used “primal therapy” and songwriting to help him deal with his issues of abandonment.

Nowhere Boy and Lennon Naked dovetail nicely because the first film follows Lennon as far as the Beatles’ big break in Hamburg. The second show takes us through Beatlemania, the breakup of the Beatles, and Yoko Ono.

Tonight, on PBS’ American Masters at 9 p.m., we have a documentary about Lennon’s final years in America – called Lennon NYC.

Speaking of Yoko Ono, she asked PBS to put together this doc which uses lots of home movies and never before released footage of random Greenwich Village parties he attended and various recording sessions. We see John and Yoko taking a leisurely stroll through Central Park, for instance. What John loved most about New York City is the balance he says he felt there, the balance of being known just enough to help his ego but not so much that he couldn’t live his life, a perfect balance. At least until Mark David Chapman came along – 30 years ago next month.