Imagine & Gimme Some Truth: The Making of the Imagine Album

John Lennon had only been an ex-Beatle for about a year when he and Yoko Ono decided to make a film about a day in their highly-scrutinized if also frequently misunderstood lives. Directed by the duo, 1972's Imagine centers more on Ono's work as an avant-garde artist than Lennon's more pop-oriented material (not that there isn't some overlap between the two). In lieu of narration, 16mm scenes play out like chapters in a live-action autobiography, opening with Lennon, dressed in white, playing "Imagine" on a white grand piano in a white room as Ono, also dressed in white, opens the windows to let in the cool English light. Imagine features songs from Lennon's same-titled album together with Ono's less overtly commercial Fly, both released by Apple Records the same year. Gimme Some Truth (2000), credited to director Andrew Solt, adds recording session footage to excerpts from the Imagine film. The participants include drummers Jim Keltner and Alan White, bassist Klaus Voormann, guitarist George Harrison, and producer Phil Spector, with whom the two Beatles collaborated on Abbey Road. If Imagine shows Lennon at his most playful and relaxed, Gimme Some Truth finds him in work mode, including the occasional outburst. For all of the music that flows through these two films—including "Jealous Guy," "Power to the People," "Good Morning," and "It’s So Hard"—they serve more as a document of a high-profile marriage in which the partners appear to be on the same wavelength at all times, whether socializing with Miles Davis and Jack Nicholson (in a sequence shot by Jonas Mekas), playing chess in their summer house, or marching for peace in London. Presented in DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and stereo on DVD, and DTS-HD 5.1 and LPCM stereo on Blu-ray, extras include outtakes and a photo shoot by David Bailey. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)