ANOTHER new Beatles film. It's almost as if the runaway (for which read: very underwhelming) success of a podcast on the subject has led to a surfeit of new releases.
And underwhelming is the key word here: yes, Peter Bradshaw can somehow write a five-star review in the Guardian without once mentioning whether the actual film is good or bad, but for those of us at the coalface of Beatles films appraisal it's a bit more nuanced. What is the film actually trying to say? How much work have Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr put into this official Apple release? Fair enough, they're in their eighties, but still. And does the mention of Martin Scorsese suggest more prestige than the film actually delivers?
Links
See Paul's Instagram story which was definitely shot on the same day he did his interview for this film
Elaine Kim's cover of All My Loving, as used in the film
Videos
Watch the trailer:
Leonard Bernstein talking about the Beatles in the 1967 documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution:
See also our episode on The Beatles: The First US Visit, which uses much of the same footage.
The Beatles: The First US Visit
How does this compare to Beatles '64, and what's the effect of having no narration or talking heads: does it create a void of context that needs filling?
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