On December 8, 1980, the very day he was tragically shot, John Lennon and Yoko Ono conducted a profound two-hour interview with a San Francisco radio crew from their New York Dakota Apartments. Ostensibly promoting their new album “Double Fantasy,” the conversation delved into a myriad of topics, despite initial warnings against asking Beatles-related questions. Both Lennon and Ono were remarkably candid, discussing their love, relationship, creativity, life post-Beatles, raising their son, and songwriting. At 40, Lennon radiated a newfound clarity, famously stating, “I feel like nothing happened before today.” This intimate conversation, alongside Annie Leibovitz’s iconic portrait of a naked Lennon embracing Ono, forms the core of Steven Soderbergh’s documentary, “John Lennon: The Last Interview.”

The film, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, aims to demystify Lennon and Ono, much like “Get Back” did for The Beatles. Soderbergh was captivated by their generosity of spirit during the interview, describing it as if “the world took place in one day, in this apartment.” A significant challenge for Soderbergh was how to visually represent the more philosophical segments of the audio. After exhausting conventional solutions, he turned to Meta’s artificial intelligence software to generate imagery for approximately 10% of the film. This decision sparked considerable controversy and an uproar within the film industry, particularly given the subject matter.

Soderbergh, a filmmaker known for experimenting with technology, embraced the debate surrounding AI in moviemaking. He emphasized the importance of transparency, stating, “Transparency is so important (in) that the world outside of the creative context, we’re not aware of the extent that this is being used and used to manipulate us.” He anticipated the strong emotional response to his use of AI, viewing it as a necessary step to foster dialogue and understanding. While critics at Cannes largely panned the AI-generated parts as banal and not significantly different from traditional special effects, Soderbergh maintains that most crucial jobs in filmmaking cannot and will not be performed by AI.

He argues that as technology enables technical perfection, imperfection may become more valuable. For Soderbergh, the use of AI in his film helps explore the boundaries of this emerging technology. His prompts for the AI were abstract, such as “circles of light that come out of nowhere” or “a black rose that turns into a Busby Berkeley thing and then a red rose,” highlighting the nascent stage of communicating creative intent to AI. His guiding principle for using AI is necessity: “Is it the only way to accomplish what I want to see? Is it truly the best way to do it?” He foresees many AI applications failing this test.

Despite the ethical and aesthetic debates, Soderbergh felt compelled to visualize the emotional flight of the conversation, considering it essential to his role as a director. He acknowledges that finding a harmonious relationship with AI technology will take time and that its impact will vary significantly across different creative roles—writers, actors, costume designers, and sound engineers will each have a unique prism through which they interact with AI. Ultimately, Soderbergh found Lennon’s burning desire to dismantle the “male rock star myth” profoundly inspiring. He hopes young audiences will recognize Lennon’s unwavering honesty and constructive spirit, constantly striving to improve the human experience on this planet.