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MacDonald:
The one by Joe Jones.
Ono:
Yes. I thought that one was amazing, so beautiful; it was like frozen smoke.
MacDonald:
There's a film on that reel called
Disappearing Music for Face
. . .
Ono:
Chieko Shiomi's film, yeah.
MacDonald:
I understand you were involved in that one too.
Ono:
Well, that was my smile. That was me. What happened was that Chieko Shiomi was in Japan at the time. She was coming here often; it wasn't like she was stationed in Japan all the time, but at the time I think she had just left to go to Japan. Then this high-speed camera idea came up, and when George was saying, ''Quick, quick, ideas," I said, "Well, how about
smile
"; and he said, "No, that you can't do, think of something else." "But," I said, "Smile is a very important one. I really want to do it," because I always had that idea, but George keeps saying, "No you can't do that one." Finally, he said, "Well, OK, actually I wanted to save that for Chieko Shiomi because she had the same idea. But I will let you perform." So that's me smiling. Later I found out that her concept was totally different from what I wanted to do. Chieko Shiomi's idea is beautiful; she catches the
disappearance
of a smile. At the time I didn't know what her title was.
MacDonald:
I assume
No. 4
was shot at a different time.
Ono:
Yes. At the time I was living at 1 West 100th Street. It was shot in my apartment. My then husband Tony Cox and Jeff Perkins helped.
MacDonald:
The long version of the buttocks film,
No. 4 (Bottoms),
is still amazing.
Ono:
I think that film had a social impact at the time because of what was going on in the world and also because of what was going on in the film world. It's a pretty interesting film really.
Do you know the statement I wrote about taking any film and burying it underground for fifty years [See
Grapefruit
(New York: Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 1971), Section 9, "On Film No. 4," paragraph 3, and "On Film No. 5 and Two Virgins," paragraph 2]? It's like wine. Any film, any cheap film, if you put it underground for fifty years, becomes interesting [laughter]. You just take a shot of people walking, and that's enough: the weight of history is so incredible.
MacDonald:
When
No. 4 (Bottoms)
was made, the idea of showing a lot of asses was completely outrageous. Bottoms were a less-respected, less-revealed part of the anatomy. These days things have changed. Now bottoms are OKcertain bottoms. What I found exhilarating about watching the film (maybe because I've always been insecure about
my
bottom!) is that after you see hundreds of bottoms, you realize that during the whole time you watched the film, you never saw the "cor-