He famously compared The Beatles to Schubert in the London Observer. He clashed with Frank Zappa and organized some semblance of structure with 200 Motels. He befriended Stanley Kubrick during The Shining, and had the honour of being asked by the Kubrick family to introduce a concert on the one-year anniversary of his death. He's made over 30 music documentaries, many of them on classical composers, but two of his better known works are All My Loving (1968) and the mammoth, 17-part All You Need Is Love (1977), both initiated by John Lennon and both featuring rare footage of everyone from rock critic Lester Bangs to a seriously disturbed Phil Spector.

And now, filmmaker Tony Palmer will be in Winnipeg, introducing selections from All You Need Is Love, with DVDs of the entire opus for sale in the lobby!

Uptown recently had the chance to discuss the origins of both rock docs.

Tony Palmer: "I first met John Lennon in 1963, when I was at University. I'd gone to a press conference where The Beatles spoke, and Lennon asked me to tour him around the campus, and we'd stayed in touch ever since.

"In 1966, I joined the BBC and, of course, The Beatles were extremely famous. Lennon had gotten increasingly frustrated that none of the musicians he admired - Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, Pink Floyd - could get on television. So Lennon told me, 'You're on the BBC, you have a duty.'

"At that time, the importance of All My Loving was that it absolutely changed what people thought was possible for rock music on television, because before that, we only had dreadful programs like Top of the Pops and The Dick Clark Show (in North America). I remember Hendrix saying to me that he would not appear on a television show where, a. you couldn't hear what he was playing, and b., between him and the cameras were all these gyrating nubiles - though he clarified that he had no problem with gyrating nubiles!

"It was just all so disrespectful of him as an artist, and as a person, and I agreed. All My Loving, for all of rock music's inadequacies, showed that something important was trying to be said with this music.

"Years later, quite by chance, in spring of 1972, I met up with Lennon in New York, just by accident. He mentioned that what was needed was a whole overview of the history of popular music - what was the origins of the blues, what was the origins of swing, and so on. Of course, it's one of those ideas that once you start thinking about how the hell you're going to do it, it seems impossible.

"At the time of All You Need, we had these 13-part programs like The History of Civilization, but they were all high culture. What I think my 17-part film showed was that it was possible to make something of that length on such a subject, and since then, there have been a number like it - it broke boundaries, and Lennon was very much an inspiration in what were, in effect, the bookends of my rock documentaries."

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
Selections chosen by director Tony Palmer
Nov. 20, Cinematheque