Yoko Ono shown as a ‘mother in pain’ in new documentary on her and John Lennon’s life in New York
Opening about the newly-released film, the co-director of ‘One to One: John and Yoko’ says Yoko Ono is seen as a “mother in pain” in the project due to her hunt for her abducted daughter.
Yoko Ono is shown as a “mother in pain” in the new documentary on her and John Lennon’s life in New York.
Newly-released film ‘One to One: John and Yoko’ is co-directed by Scott Macdonald and Kevin MacDonald, and brings an emotional depth to the portrayal of Yoko by focusing on her agonising years-long search for her abducted daughter.
The project explores the first 18 months that John Lennon and Yoko spent in New York during the early 1970s – a period that often remains overshadowed by their more famous political activism.
Scott spoke to People about how Yoko's heartbreaking personal struggle shaped the narrative of the documentary.
He said: “When I first heard it, it made me feel totally different about Yoko, because you realise all this period, she was a mother in pain who's trying to find her child.”
Yoko, who was 38 at the time of the period shown in the documentary, had been desperately searching for her daughter Kyoko, who had been kidnapped by her ex-husband, Tony Cox.
“Yoko doesn't see her for 25 years,” Scott said.
He added: “This is a story that was never a secret, but nobody seems to know about it.”
Yoko’s grief over Kyoko’s disappearance is woven into the political activism of the period, giving a more complex layer to her role in the public eye.
Scott added: “I want to make people understand what that must have felt like for her.”
One of the most poignant moments in the film comes when Yoko sings ‘Age 39’ (also known as ‘Looking Over from My Hotel Window’) at an international feminist conference.
The lyrics include: “If you see my daughter, tell her I love her. She haunts me in my dreams, and that’s saying a lot for a neurotic like me.”
Scott added this emotional aspect of Yoko’s life had been overshadowed by her portrayal as the woman who allegedly “broke up the Beatles“.
“I think part of that was Yoko and the loss of her daughter,” he said.
Scott went on: “It was central to the documentary. I want to make people understand what that must have felt like for her.”
The documentary also includes personal footage of John and Yoko’s time in New York, along with never-before-heard phone calls that offer candid insights into their daily lives.
Scott said about the tapes: “It just felt like, ‘Oh my God, if you'd been hanging out with them in that apartment in 1972, this is the stuff you would've heard.’”
