John Lennon + Yoko Ono Film №6 ‘Rape’ 1969
“The cameraman will chase a girl on a street with a camera persistently until he corners her in an alley, and, if possible, until she is in a falling position.”
“This film was shot by our cameraman Nick, while we were in a hospital. Nick is a gentle-man who prefers eating clouds and floating pies to shooting “Rape”. Nevertheless it was shot.” Yoko, 1969
“On the third day we were given the key to her apartment. That’s pretty full on and ends with me being very aggressive with the camera, putting my foot on the phone so she can’t call the police. I felt we had pushed it as far as we could.” Nic Knowland
“The girl in the film did not know what was happening. Her sister was in on it, so when she calls her sister on the phone, her sister is just laughing at her and the girl doesn’t understand why. Nic Knowland did the actual shooting. I wasn’t there. Everything was candid, but I kept pushing him to bring back better material. The type of material he brought back at first was something like he would be standing on the street, and when a group of girls passed by, he would direct the camera to them. The girls would just giggle and run away, and he wouldn’t follow. I kept saying he could do better than that, but he actually had a personal problem doing the film because he was a Buddhist and a peacenik – he didn’t want to intrude on people’s privacy. I remember John saying later that no actress could have given a performance that real.” Yoko, 1987
“I’ve done tons of work, and I don’t have time to check it all out, but I wish I could check about this strange thing, which is that a lot of my works have been a projection of my future fate. It frightens me. It simply frightens me. I don’t want to see Rape now. I haven’t seen the Rape film in a long time, but just thinking about the concept of it frightens me because now I’m in that position, the position of the woman in the film.” Yoko, 1987
“A profound piece, especially in the context of the Me Too movement. It’s not designed to be entertaining, it’s a concept, a metaphor and an experience.” Sean Ono Lennon

















