On February 7, 1964, the United States—and subsequently, the entire world—changed irrevocably. The Beatles arriving at John F. Kennedy Airport to thousands of adoring, screaming fans on the catwalk changed the brain chemistry of a country in need of something good and lit the fuse for a cultural revolution.
This is the condition that the Beatles '64a new documentary released by Apple Corps Ltd. of the band, presents to his viewers. In November 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed during a motorcade in Dallas, and the shocking moment sparked a period of mourning across the nation. Some will never recover from the trauma of seeing such a violent death beamed into their homes on television. Months later, a new generation couldn't tear themselves away from the television as The Beatles came on The Ed Sullivan Showapproximately 73 million people watched. As the teary-eyed interviewer Joe Queenan says, it was like “the light went on” and the world was bright and full of color for the first time.
The new documentary, out now on Disney+, follows the band's two-week trip to America, their first time outside of Europe. Using archival and newly restored footage, the Martin Scorsese-produced film follows their journey from the moment they step off the flight to the moment they return home. It includes a wealth of interviews with those in the eye of the storm such as Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and photographer Harry Benson, along with fans who were on the road or obsessed through the tube.
While the story may already be familiar to Beatles fans, the documentary is unwavering in its portrayal of the band's visit and the context surrounding it. File interviews and clippings see a hostile press compare the group to 'German measles', while at the British Embassy in Washington, the difference between the working-class band and their bureaucratic, stifling environment is revealed. Divisions of race, class and gender are explored with interviews with Smokey Robinson of Motown and Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers, whom the Beatles covered early in their career.
On the eve of its release, director David Tedeschi and producer Margaret Bodde chat with them Bulletin board about the challenges of bringing the story back to life, the surprises in the editing suite, and the role Scorsese had in shaping the film's narrative.
This movie comes out 60 years after they arrived in the US. Why does this story still seem relevant?
Bodde: The interest in them is endless. When the Beatles' last single “Now and Then” came out, you had young people and teenagers on TikTok crying and talking about them with such love, and those people weren't even the grandchildren of the people who first discovered the Beatles in 1964 in America. They have a timeless appeal.
The fact that they came to America so soon after a beloved president was assassinated and there was a country that was grieving and in a place of despair, they came with their personality and their music. Perhaps there are always moments like this — America right now is in a similar place of division where no one can agree on one thing. But when the Beatles came along, it was the one thing that people could rally around that ray of light and their humor and their hope that they brought through their music and their humor and their personalities.
Compared to Peter Jackson's Returnwhich shows the group as four distinct personalities with shared histories and relationships, Beatles '64 he catches them at a fairly innocent moment. It is like a person…
Bodde: They seem like a single entity. People still don't know which is which. Albert and David Maysles shot them in New York during that time and Albert asks John to hit the mic slate and he calls him George instead of John! And you know in six months no one would ever make that mistake, but it was so young and everyone in the band felt like they were living a dream that they could never have imagined and yet it was happening.
Tedeschi: And it was so unexpected. It was the greatest weapon against the cynicism of the New York press. There were days with stories of how ridiculous their hair and music were, they were like wolves ready for their prey. And then very quickly it became a different story.
Do you think part of the appeal is that they are so removed from US culture?
Tedeschi: They were exotic and familiar at the same time. This is literally what Joe Queenan says, he was from Liverpool but he might as well have been from Mars.
Bodde: As a rock'n'roll group they were the first, they came before any of the other bands like their contemporaries. Their separation from the US allowed them to have a more open embrace of black music that came out of America such as soul, rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll. They loved it and that's why they were so excited to come to America in the first place. They really wanted to meet their heroes and hear this music live, as they had already seen Motown come to the UK. America's eyes were being opened to the treasure they already had and it wasn't getting the appreciation it deserved.
Apple Corps Ltd.
How can you bring something new to topics we already know so well?
Tedeschi: Right away there's the challenge that we know it's a very famous story that we know has been told many times, and what's new? I will say this largely because of the recovery from [Peter Jackson’s] Park Road Post Production and Giles Martin [son of the Fab Four’s producer George] By remixing the shows, there was material that was never accessible again. The footage shot by the Maysels brothers looks like it was shot yesterday. More importantly, the concert at the Washington Coliseum is such an amazing document of who The Beatles were as a live band.
While there are interviews with the band throughout, it's the fans and their experiences that really stuck with me. There is an amazing clip of the Gonzalez family and a young girl watching the clip in real time. Why did you want to focus the film on these people?
Bodde: Seventy-three million people watched this show The Ed Sullivan Showand it was a common moment in American history that was happening right in the Gonzalez family's small apartment in Hell's Kitchen. Then you listen to Jamie Bernstein [daughter of conductor Leonard Bernstein] talking about the black and white television being moved from the library to the dining room at 8 o'clock to watch while eating dinner. Whether you were working class or privileged, no matter who you were, this was a moment of common interest and joy that everyone could relate to.
What role did Martin Scorsese play in the production of the film?
Tedeschi: We have both worked with him for a long time, over 20 years. At the beginning we talk specifically about those challenges, as there were a lot of Beatles films and a lot of material out there, he was very helpful in shaping the line and then he would see cuts. And tell us what worked and what didn't.
Bodde: Martin loves music and talks about how if he had one talent he wished he had, it would be to play an instrument and be a musician. He finds that everything about music fuels his own creativity. He hears a musical movement or a song and it inspires the visual and he has the song in his head before he has the images. And he's a preservationist and historian, so music documentaries—whether directed or produced—include many of his pursuits and interests.
One of the things that he and David do so brilliantly is put the historical context around these musical moments, and I think that's what makes the film so compelling. When you talk about what you could bring to the Beatles, you can bring the history of America at that time, the history of an impending social revolution and ideas about who women and men are, a racial consciousness in general, the idea of Everyone who started protesting the Vietnam War, the Beatles were kind of a part of it and integrated into it as individuals and as a group.
Was there anything that surprised you when you returned to this material?
Tedeschi: The strangest thing for me was that I found out that there was an establishment against the Beatles and actively working to make them fail. There is an amazing scene at the British Embassy in DC where they have a party and are horribly mistreated. The staff look down on them and treat them like they are low class. John says some “animal” came up to Ringo and cut his hair. It is possible. I didn't expect such a reaction.
The film concludes with a look at the generational shift at the time, with Lennon even calling his post-war generation “the ones who were allowed to live”…
Bodde: This video of John talking [Canadian media theorist] Marshall McLuhan in 1969, was a real revelation. The level of insight and intellectual gravitas that Lennon had to put this idea together is an amazing idea, that because you weren't going into the army, you could pick up a guitar or a paintbrush… you could do other things. That's freedom right?
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/the-beatles-64-documentary-director-producer-interview-1235841167/
