{alltv} Ono-approved Lennon doc on PBS

It's intriguing to think how the musical world might be different if John Lennon had to deal with 21st-century paparazzi.

The thought struck us as we were watching LennoNYC, a Yoko Ono-approved documentary about the ex-Beatle's near-decade living in New York in the 1970s.

It has played in some movie theatres recently, but it airs on most PBS affiliates on Monday, Nov. 22 as part of the American Masters series.

Early in the doc, Lennon -- who was assassinated in New York in 1980 at age 40 -- is talking about how comfortable and free he feels in the Big Apple, and how he doesn't mind when people wave hello or ask for autographs.

"I'm just known enough to keep my ego floating, but unknown enough to get around, which is nice," he says.

John Lennon, "unknown" at any level? Really?

Well, by 2010 standards, maybe that's true.

We're pretty sure John could not have done much walking around today without being harassed to the point of retreat. So he probably would have been forced to lead a different type of life had the 2010 paparazzi been around back then.

But who knows -- would he still be alive?

LennoNYC takes an intimate look at the time John and his wife Yoko spent living in the States. But the two-hour doc also is an interesting historical document, especially in the first half-hour, when Lennon's battles with the U.S. government over his potential deportation back to Britain are chronicled.

For Beatlemaniacs, there's nothing breathtakingly new in LennoNYC. But it's well put-together and you get to see and hear some rare footage and tape.

"It seems like you (the public) know everything about us," Ono said this past summer at the Television Critics Association tour. "And I thought so, too.

"But when I saw the rushes, I was so surprised that they got so (much) footage that I didn't even know. I said, 'You mean they were filming us when we were doing that?'

"I thought, 'Okay, this is something John would have approved and John would have wanted the world to see, because it's the part of his life that he really loved.' "

As much as we know about John, a few things about the man are brought into focus in LennoNYC.

Like a typical dude in love, right to the end, John never quit trying to foist Yoko onto an unwilling public. Love is blind, as they say -- and deaf, apparently.

With some notable exceptions, John's mixture of politics and song in the early 1970s did not wield wonderful results from a musical perspective.

But politically in those turbulent days, John may have been a bit naive to the true power he had, and how threatening he was to the status quo.

Anyway, even 30 years after his death and 40 years after the Beatles broke up, John Lennon remains one of the most compelling individuals the music world ever has known.

As Elton John says at the end of LennoNYC, "I can honestly say, every minute I ever spent with John, I treasure."