Steven Soderbergh has released a documentary centered on one of rock and roll's final moments. The director's John Lennon: The Last Interview captures the former Beatle and Yoko Ono in their Dakota apartment on December 8th, 1980—the day Lennon was fatally shot outside.
The interview came about after Bay Area radio station KFRC's Dave Sholin was summoned to David Geffen's office and played a brand-new Lennon track—"(Just Like) Starting Over," the lead single from Double Fantasy, the couple's first album together in years. Geffen asked if Sholin wanted to interview Lennon and Yoko at their New York home.
On December 8th, Sholin, producer Ron Hummel, and host Laurie Kaye set up their microphones in the Lennons' apartment. While Annie Leibowitz was photographing John upstairs for a Rolling Stone cover, Yoko came down and spoke with the crew. Then Lennon joined his wife for a three-hour conversation spanning parenting, music, and their shared history.
After the interview, the couple caught a ride to the studio in the team's car. Sholin headed to the airport—only to learn that night that Lennon had been shot dead outside the Dakota.
According to Rolling Stone, Soderbergh's documentary uses the radio interview as its foundation to explore Lennon's final five years, focusing on how domestic life and family became the creative basis for his writing.
"You could not ask for a better double feature," Soderbergh tells the publication, comparing it to Kevin Macdonald's One to One: John & Yoko.
The original radio interview, which aired days after Lennon's death, has circulated for over four decades. Soderbergh's documentary presents it with immediacy.
