John Lennon’s favourite movie of all time
In addition to being the most influential band of all time, The Beatles also gave us some memorable moments in cinema. Making five feature films across their musical career, from A Hard Day’s Night to Let It Be, the Fab Four’s flirts with the silver screen are all very interesting and enjoyable parts of music and film history. When it comes to John Lennon’s personal favourite, however, his choice is pretty off-the-wall, even for him.
Perhaps the most memorable moment in the Beatles’ filmography came with 1968’s psychedelic fantasy film Yellow Submarine. The iconic animated movie based on the track from Revolver completely reinvented the animated genre, showing an alternative to the Disney fairytales that had dominated up to that point. Although the band members themselves had very little input in the making of the film, aside from contributing the soundtrack, they were said to be happy with how the film turned out.
The weird and wonderful Yellow Submarine perfectly encapsulated the stunning psychedelia of that period in the history of The Beatles. Their most interesting period musically, the psychedelic influences on albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Revolver and Magical Mystery Tour signified their move from teeny-bopping pop songs to serious, innovative and groundbreaking musicians at the forefront of a brand new musical movement. It is fitting, therefore, that Lennon’s favourite is just as surreal as the films which he helped to create during his time with The Beatles.
El Topo is a surrealist Mexican acid western released in 1970. Said to be a favourite of the Beatle, the film follows a cowboy gunfighter’s quest for enlightenment. Along the way, the movie features symbolism of Judaism, Christianity, and the occult, as well as a healthy dose of spiritualism and Eastern philosophy. As the named genre ‘acid western’ might imply, the film is characteristic of the psychedelic art movement, which was popular in the late 1960s.
Not only was Lennon a fan of the movie, he was pivotal to its success in the United States. According to director Alejandro Jodorowsky, the movie was not particularly well received until Lennon gave it his approval, “When I brought El Topo to New York, no one understood the picture”, he explained to Interviews with Icons, “But John Lennon understood. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, they presented El Topo in the United States, they introduced it.”
Such was the depth of Lennon’s admiration for the film that he reportedly managed to convince Beatles manager Allen Klein to purchase the rights to El Topo. Furthermore, he was said to have given Jodorowsky one million dollars to go towards the production of his next project, The Holy Mountain.
In addition to Lennon, both Peter Gabriel and Marylin Manson are said to be great admirers of El Topo. In recent years, however, the work has come under heavy criticism for its depiction of rape. At one point, the titular character, played by director Jodorowsky, rapes Mara Lorenzio’s character. Rape on-screen is controversial enough in any context, but Jodorowsky has claimed that the scene in the film was not actually simulated, “There was no emotional relationship between us because I had put a clause in all the women’s contracts stating that they would not make love with the director,” he once said, “I really raped her, and she screamed”.
Although the director remains active to this day, his films have generally been of diminishing returns, and his announced plans for a sequel to El Topo have failed to gain any financial backing thus far.
