\n\tIf you went to a rock-concert film in the \u201970s, chances are that some of it was going to be in split screen: the tr\u00e9s counterculture technique of dividing the big screen into two parts (or maybe three or four), each one depicting the musical action from a different angle. What made split screen more than a bit trippy was the heady simultaneity of it: It was an invitation to absorb the same event, the same moment, in different ways, which amounted to a kind of stoned cinematic Cubism. (It also anticipated aspects of the digital age.) There were Hollywood dramas that made memorable use of split screen, notably \u201cThe Boston Strangler,\u201d and famously \u201cThe Thomas Crown Affair\u201d (though I always found the use of it in that film gimmicky). But there\u2019s no doubt that the \u201cCitizen Kane\u201d of split screen was \u201cWoodstock,\u201d where much of the technique was orchestrated by one of the film\u2019s then-unknown editors, Martin Scorsese.<\/p>\n
\n\tAll of which is to say: I was glad to see the generous and accomplished use of split screen in \u201cPower to the People: John & Yoko in NYC,\u201d a sizzling concert doc that captures the two benefit shows that John Lennon<\/a> led at Madison Square Garden on August 30, 1972. (The film is opening today for a limited theatrical run.) For me, the technique had a nostalgic effect \u2014 it took me back to my youthful days of seeing \u201cGimme Shelter\u201d and \u201c200 Motels\u201d and \u201cMad Dogs & Englishmen.\u201d More than that, though, I was reminded of what a fantastic technique it is. In \u201cPower to the People,\u201d we see archival footage of John and Yoko onstage with Elephant\u2019s Memory, who are a killer band, but thanks to the freshness of the editing (by Ben Wainwright-Pearce), one half of the screen will be on the singer, and the other half will be peering at a band member or three, soaking up their energy, making the two sections of the image feel unified in their very separation, as if the film were breaking down the atomic structure of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.<\/p>\n \n\tLennon was 31 when he gave these performances, with some experimental ephemera and three mainstream solo albums behind him (the great \u201cJohn Lennon\/Plastic Ono Band,\u201d the scattershot \u201cSome Time in New York City,\u201d and the intermittently inspired \u201cImagine\u201d). They turned out to be the last and only full-length concerts he would ever give after leaving the Beatles. In his Army jacket and lollipop-blue round sunglasses, with shaggy long sideburns, Lennon gives off a fascinating air of self-involved indifference, expressed in the way that he chews gum for the entire concert. Maybe that was a way of calming his nerves, but the upshot is to give him a disaffected air that\u2019s almost Lou Reed adjacent. He and Yoko and the band perform 15 songs, and at certain points he\u2019s doggedly sincere, yet he\u2019s also got the Lennon cheek (\u201cWelcome to the rehearsal,\u201d he warns the audience), and also the Lennon detachment, that underlying vibe of \u201cWho gives a fuck, really?\u201d<\/p>\n