by MATTHEW HAYS

A tremendous sense of sorrow sets in as the feature-length documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon unreels. The film, co-directed by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, looks back to the period when the Beatles were first invading America, following through to Lennon’s murder in 1980.

The film is obviously sad because of Lennon’s untimely end, but also because people appear to have learned so little since the Vietnam War. Leaf and Scheinfeld go back to the Beatles’ political awakenings, and the first quote that got them into serious trouble in the press. Lennon had the gall to suggest that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ. The filmmakers have culled some brilliant footage here, of dimwitted religious types who tried to get the Beatles banned due to this statement.

But it was his anti-war stance that would really get Lennon into trouble. The film trots out a number of celebrities, including Walter Cronkite, Mario Cuomo and Carl Bernstein. All point to a time when Lennon posed a real threat to the Nixon government, which was facing very serious unrest over the war overseas. People thought it was just paranoia until many of the Nixon tapes revealed the extent of the president’s vendetta against certain pop culture icons. Best of all, the film includes interviews with actual FBI agents of the day who confirm that J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon saw Lennon as a dangerous subversive and tried to get him deported back to Britain.

The talking-head testimonials are intriguing (yes, there’s an obligatory appearance by Noam Chomsky), but the best parts are the media clips of Lennon himself, appearing on shows hosted by the likes of Dick Cavett and the whitebread Mike Douglas. Lennon’s conviction about giving peace a chance is what’s most often remembered about the man, but these clips also show us his sharp, bitchy sense of humour. I laughed at his statements during the film, especially during his standoff with a prudish New York Times reporter.

On first glance, this looks like a documentary best suited to Beatles fans. But The U.S. vs. John Lennon is a great deal more than that, a time capsule gazing back to a period when a country was caught up in a bad, immoral war that a corrupt president tried desperately to justify. The more things change…

The U.S. vs. John Lennon opens Friday, Sep. 29

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