Freedom, January 23

To make Rape, Ono's cameraman Nic Knowland picked up a woman in a London cemetery and pursued her, relentlessly, through the streets, into a friend's flat and finally to her own place. Speaking only German and Italian, she can neither discern why she is being filmed nor make her stalkers go away; other women appear to be accomplices. She becomes frantic. Usually interpreted as a realization in the extreme of the paparazzi syndrome, Rape speaks (rather screams) to the cinema, as well. And specifically, to woman as she is captured in the cinema—her inability to communicate from "behind the screen," pursued by a (phallic) lens and microphone, the camera so close as to refuse the whole picture, a cameraman whose silence is power.

—Judy Bloch

• Photographed by Nic Knowland. With Eva Majlata. (77 mins)

Preceded by shorts:
Freedom (Yoko Ono, U.S., 1970). Yoko tries to free herself from her brassiere, in slow motion. (1 min)
Fly (Yoko Ono, John Lennon, U.S., 1970). One of Ono and Lennon's most beautiful films explores the idea of the female body on screen as a fly explores the naked body of a woman, lying prone. Here the high-pitched sounds of Ono's music find their natural niche. (25 mins)

• (Total running time: 103 mins, Color, 16mm)