Fly (film)

Fly is a 1970 avant-garde short film directed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Filmed a year prior to the release of Ono's 1971 album of the same name,[1] the short depicts a housefly crawling around on the body of a nude woman, actress Virginia Lust. By the end of the film, multiple flies can be seen on Lust's body. The film's visuals are accompanied by "Fly", a composition by Lennon and Ono that would later appear on Ono's album of the same name.[2]

This article is about the 1970 film. For other uses, see Fly (disambiguation).
Fly
Directed byJohn Lennon
Yoko Ono
StarringVirginia Lust
Edited byJohn Lennon
Yoko Ono
Dan Richter
Jon Bloom
Daniel Seymour
Marc Stone
Nancy Kallile
Andy Burke
Bill Holderith
Music byJohn Lennon
Yoko Ono
Release date
  • 1970 (1970)
Running time
25 minutes

Production
External image
image icon FLY, 1970. (Film still). ©Yoko Ono
via: The Lowry [3]

Fly was conceived as a two-sentence premise initially titled Film No. 11: "About a fly going from the toe to head of a lying naked body, crawling very slowly. The whole film should take about an hour."[4]

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack was conceived in the Regency Hotel in New York on Christmas day in 1970.[4] Lennon recorded the soundtrack on a multitrack Nagra audio recorder in three parts. The first "movement" features vocal improvisations by Ono, and the second features those vocals played back on the recorder while Lennon performs on a guitar.[4] The third part of the soundtrack was recorded as follows: Lennon played guitar against the reversed playback of the second section of the soundtrack; this recording was then reversed (described by scholar Melissa Ragona as "a kind of double negative"),[5] and played alongside another vocal solo by Ono.[5] When the doubly-reversed recording finished, Ono continued performing vocally, and Lennon played a live radio.[5]

The soundtrack would later be released as a track titled "Fly", appearing on Ono's 1971 album of the same name.[6]

See also

References
  1. McKinzie, Matt (22 April 2020). "Defragmenting Bodies: Yoko Ono's 'Fly' at 50". PopMatters. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  2. Volmers, Eric (16 September 2020). "Unfinished and interactive: Contemporary Calgary's new exhibit on the life and art of Yoko Ono". Calgary Herald. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  3. "The Lowry".
  4. Vernallis, Herzog & Richardson 2013, p. 160.
  5. Vernallis, Herzog & Richardson 2013, p. 161.
  6. Vernallis, Herzog & Richardson 2013, p. 162.

Bibliography
  • Vernallis, Carol; Herzog, Amy; Richardson, John, eds. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199757640.
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