Illustration: Geezer & Blonde Production
Here’s some information regarding the upcoming documentary film, “Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade” (cinema release: May/June 2025). This is a summarized edit of Facebook posts by the director, Alan G Parker.
Director Alan G Parker: Initially, way back in the summer of 2018, with a successful Beatles movie (“It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond“) under our belts, we thought about making an in-depth movie about the last 12 months of John Lennon’s life, to that end a lot of research was done and plans made, with the arrival of COVID and a much longer research period than we thought we originally had, we pretty much scrapped all those plans, feeling like that story had been told to the nth degree and that there were no genuine conclusions to be reached anyway…
But, over time, lots of people who had seen our Beatles movie and knew John Lennon pretty well were queuing up to be in our new movie. The plan (by May 2021) was to interview as many people who knew John well as possible in-depth, none of them are getting any younger so the time was right to get their truth on film. We also interviewed a select number of Beatles authors and scholars because I always find they are better with dates, times and places.
By the end of 2022 we had successfully interviewed over 55 people, and following a Christmas break we hit the studio in 2023, by now there was no point in rushing “Borrowed Time” we knew we had something and so the edit was relaxed and a long format fan film started to come together, it runs 3 hours and 28 minutes, and although hard core Lennon fans will love it, we felt that what we also needed was a more commercially accessible version.
Like all documentaries not everybody can make the final cut, but here’s a list of those (interviewed) who have made the final cut; Steve Turner/Chris Charlesworth/Chris Salewicz/Tony Bramwell/Tariq Ali/Andy Peebles/Helen Anderson/David Stark/Peter ‘Dougal’ Butler/Ray Connolly/Tony Palmer/Chris Welch/Barry Miles/Philip Norman/John Dunbar/Bob Harris OBE/Earl Slick/Jay Bergen/Alan Weiss/Henry ‘The Horse’ Smith/Kenneth Womack/Jon Smith/Anthony DeCurtis/Dave Sholin/Laurie Kaye/Vinny Appice/Pamela Des Barres/Gerry Cagle/Robert Morgan/Pat Gilbert/Mark Cunningham & Matt Snow.
In the late Summer of 2024, following lots of conversations about what we were looking for in terms of the second version we went back to the studio, this time round we created a version of “Borrowed Time” that I’m incredibly proud of, which although running some 98 minutes less than the original really stands up as a story about Lennon’s later years. So much so that I began referring to the original version as “The Directors Rough Cut”, they are two quite different films.
Our plan now is to use one for the official release and the other as a sort of long format DVD/Blu-Ray extra! And in all honesty I can’t wait for you to see both… It’s been a long, sometimes frustrating, at times annoying road, but now it’s ready for release. And I for one can’t wait.
I’d like to personally thank the teams at Lucky Cat Post Production and Digital Distortion, both situated in Poland Street (“It’s a sign I tell you!”), for their incredible help in pulling together the new cinema/TV cut of “Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade”, which will be heading to you in 2025 in two rather different versions, buy the DVD or Blu-Ray and you’ll see!
Cinema/TV cut (2 hours/8 mins)
DVD/Blu-Ray Directors Cut (3 hours/28 mins)
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