»… Play-rew-forward-stop …« audio-video music series 2.3

Rew as replay, return, memory,
5 explosive memories of invasive poetry: Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Lennon and Pierre Boulez

Venice, Palazzo Cini at San Vio
20 June 2009, 5.00pm

Third session: HONEYMOON SONG – YEAR OF PEACE
A film by Paul Mc Grath, 2000

In 1969, when the front pages of newspapers were filled with reports of wars and social unrest, John Lennon and Yoko Ono fell deeply in love. The eccentric rock couple then married. But rather than enjoying the bliss of newly-weds, they wanted to change the world from their nuptial bed. In a hotel room, surrounded by journalists, fans and curious onlookers, they announced their peace mission and invited the whole world to join them in bed to share their dream symbolically. They were accused of being naive or even judged to be idiotic and ridiculous. But despite this, the two artists’ honeymoon project, highlighted by their popularity, attracted great interest in the theme of peace and putting an end to hatred and violence.
This well-assembled film is a rare testimony to some of the key moments in an incredibly responsive age. Ono and Lennon accommodated in their wedding bed the notorious diatribe with the reactionary comic-strip artist Al Capp, the dialogues with media expert Marshall McLuhan, and the formalities of the meeting with Canadian premier Pierre Trudeau. Twenty years after Lennon’s assassination, the film marks an ideal return to the universal love nest featuring survivor Ono and many leading players of the pacifist mission expressed by a vintage year of magic and mysticism.