Most people have probably seen the iconic images of Los Beatles acting in The Ed Sullivan Show. But how many saw Paul McCartney during that same trip to the United States feeding seagulls from the balcony of your hotel? That moment, as well as the occasion when George Harrison y John Lennon They joke by exchanging their jackets, they are part of the Disney+ documentary Beatles ‘64an intimate look at the English band’s first trip to America using rare and newly restored footage.
“It’s so fun to be a fly on the wall in those really intimate moments,” he says. Margaret Boddewho produced it with Martin Scorsese. “It’s just an incredible gift of time and technology to be able to see them now with the decades gone by removed, so you really feel like you’re there.”
Beatles ‘64 delves into images of a 14-day trip, filmed by documentary filmmakers Albert y David Maysleswho recorded 11 hours of the Fab Four joking around at the Plaza Hotel in New York or traveling. It was restored by Park Road Post (the company of Peter Jackson, author of that 9-hour film feat about the recording of Let it be) in New Zealand.
“It’s beautiful, although it’s in black and white and it’s not widescreen,” says the director David Tedeschi. “It’s like it was filmed yesterday. “It captures the youth of the four Beatles and their fans.” The images are complemented by interviews with the two surviving members of the band and people whose lives were impacted by that tour. Including some of the women who, as teenagers, stood outside their hotel hoping to see Los Beatles. “It was like crazy love,” remembers the fan Vickie Brenna-Costa in the documentary. “Now I can’t really understand it. But then, it was natural.”
The film shows the four idols flirting and dancing at the nightclub Peppermint LoungeHarrison playing with a riff from Woody Guthrie on his guitar and tells the story of Ronnie Spector kicking the group out the back door of a hotel and taking them to Harlem for barbecue.
The documentary coincides with the release of a vinyl box set that compiles the band’s seven American albums released in ’64 and early ’65 — Meet The Beatles!, The Beatles’ Second Album, A Hard Day’s Night (the movie soundtrack), Something New, The Beatles’ Story, Beatles ‘65 y The Early Beatles. All of those records have been out of circulation on vinyl since 1995.
The visit of Los Beatles to the US in 1964 also included concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall, a show at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, DC, and a visit to Miami, where the band met Muhammad Ali. The documentary shows the band members reading newspaper articles about themselves.
Viewers may discover that Los Beatles —now revered—were met with derision or skepticism by the older generation. At the British Embassy in New York, the four were treated as lower class, while the renowned broadcaster Eric Sevareidreporting for CBS, compared the reaction to Los Beatles with German measles. “There are only four Elvis Presleys”a journalist told them during a press conference, to which the Liverpool boys responded in good humor by starting to spin while Ringo Starr He shouted “It’s not true!”
“Why the establishment was against him is a mystery to me,” Tedeschi says. “It seems to me that older people believed that music would return to the jazz big bands of the 1950s.”
The faces of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison y Ringo Starr They continue to shine with energy and wonder in the midst of the maelstrom that surrounded them. The documentary shows how they faced with joy and good humor the constant public scrutiny and the cameras that never stopped pointing at them. In one scene, they are seen in their hotel room accompanied by Murray Kaufmana New York radio DJ known as Murray the Kwhose presence disconcerted everyone, since no one remembers having given him access.
The film highlights unique moments, such as close-ups of the band on stage, where even the charismatic George occasionally seemed to zone out. It also explores the impact of his music, described by the writer Joe Queenan as a “disturbing alchemy” that fused the energy of rock’n’roll with a unique innocence. According to Queenan, Los Beatles They became a symbol of cultural freedom, moving away from the rigid model of masculinity of the time, as noted by the feminist Betty Friedan.
The documentary suggests that the Beatles helped pave the way for the acceptance of styles such as glam rock, challenging gender norms with their soft, androgynous appearance, a contrast to martial figures such as Elvis Presley (who did complete military service). In this regard, Lennon offers a provocative reflection: “The Beatles and their class were created by the vacuum of non-conscription… We were the army that never was.” This idea, which links the rise of rock’n’roll with the abolition of compulsory military service, invites us to reflect on the cultural impact of the band, which transcended music to become a unique social phenomenon.
Musicians like Sananda Maitreya, Ron Isley y Smokey Robinson They also discuss the Fab Four and what they took from black music. There are also interviews with Harlem residents, the critic Joe Queennan and the filmmaker David Lynchwho saw them play at the Washington Coliseum.
Beatles ‘64 tries to explain why the young people were so enthralled by John, Paul, George and Ringo. His visit occurred just months after the president’s assassination John. F. Kennedy and the documentary’s director maintains that Beatlemania was a balm for a nation in mourning. “Part of it is, I think, that the light was just off. They were depressed. Everything was dark. AND ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ “It enlightened them,” says Tedeschi.
As McCartney says in the documentary: “Maybe America needed something like The Beatles to get out of mourning and just say ‘Life goes on’”.
Source: AP
(Photos: Disney+ Beatles via AP; AP/File)
