Fly | |
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Directed by |
John Lennon Yoko Ono |
Starring | Virginia Lust |
Edited by | John Lennon Yoko Ono Dan Richter Jon Bloom Daniel Seymour Marc Stone Nancy Kallile Andy Burke Bill Holderith |
Music by | John Lennon Yoko Ono |
Release date |
|
Running time | 25 minutes |
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]
External image | |
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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]
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]