Exuberance marks Beatles US tour

 

 Odd thing about youth. You don't really know what it means until you lose it. It's not that you want to go back in time, it's more that you can recall moments before you realized your personal future had an expiration date.

  I thought about that while watching Beatles '64, a documentary made from footage shot by two great documentarians, the late Albert and David Maysles for What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A., a documentary released about nine months after the Beatles tour.

  Produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by David Tedeschi, who worked with Scorsese on George Harrison: Living in the Material World, '64 reworks some of the Maysles footage, bringing present-tense immediacy to a bygone moment, along with a bit of reflection and improved sound.

   The Beatles arrived in the US about two and a half moths after JFK's murder. I believe it was John Lennon who later said that the Beatles helped jolt the country out of its post-assassination gloom. Frank Sinatra and Elvis were followed by plenty of screaming teenage girls, but the Beatles reinvigorated fan frenzy.

  In the documentary, the Beatles bring their long hair and impudent charm to New York, Washington, and Miami. Their songs don't so much plumb depths as they burst with what felt like a new kind of energy. It was music with exclamation points. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 Beatles '64 also chronicles a time before the US was deeply involved in Vietnam, and, in retrospect, it seems like it might have been the last good time before young Americans began dying in a country few of them had ever heard of.

  The documentary includes plenty of shots of the Beatles doing what they seemed to do so well, goof around, often in a posh suite at the Plaza. Rockers' having fun? That's the way it was, maybe because fame had yet to exhaust John, Paul, Ringo, and George.

    Of course, we see the landmark appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Beatles' concert at Carnegie Hall, but the Beatles had yet to push the musical envelope as far as they would. It would take two years for the Beatles to release Revolver, the album that featured Eleanor Rigby, Yellow Submarine, and Good Day Sunshine. It would be three years until St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and six years before the Beatles broke up. 

    Yes, there are talking heads, David Lynch, Jamie Bernstein, the late conductor's daughter, and Smokey Robinson of the Miracles among them. Paul McCartney, another of the film's producers, adds perspective. So does Ringo. Both are in their 80s.

    The Beatles excitement about visiting the US, an enthusiasm amply reciprocated by their fans, buoys this infectiously lively doc. Ordinary women -- long past their teens -- still glow when recalling their Beatles' ardor. 

  That's a key: Beatles '64 fires a shot of youthful exuberance. No, it doesn't last, but it's still possible to remember how it felt.

   Beatles '64 will be available on Disney+ beginning on Nov. 29.

The Beatles up close and personal

    I know rock aficionados who approach the Beatles with the kind of parsing skills one expects from Talmudic scholars. These are folks who steep themselves in analysis of the music, the books, and the lore — all things Beatles. 

    And why not? The Beatles were a pop-cultural phenomenon like no other and their music grew and developed in complexity as they became more accomplished and famous. 

    I leave that kind of analysis to rock critics and I look forward to reading what some of them have to say about Peter Jackson's documentary, The Beatles: Get Back. 

   For me,  Jackson has made the perfect movie for anyone who has ever wondered how it would feel to hang out with The Beatles during a recording session. Watch the film and you'll know.

  The nearly eight-hour documentary has been assembled  from 60 hours of footage shot in January of 1969 by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the documentary Let It Be, which was 81 minutes long and evidently hasn't been available since 1980.

   Beatles mavens feel free to chime in with more details.

  Jackson's version hints at the dissolution to come, notably George Harrison's discontent with how Paul and John, to a lesser extent, dominate the group's musical decisions. 

    At one point, George says he's leaving the band. 

    When, someone asks. 

     Now, says George as he walks out. (He does return.)

    Yoko Ono almost always can be seen sitting at John's side, even while the group is working. She's either ignored by the others or, at times, becomes the subject of conversation, none of it memorably vicious.

   Mostly, Jackson reveals the stop-start quality the creation process for songs originally meant to be part of a TV concert. They eventually were used in a rooftop concert staged at Apple’s London building, The Beatles' last public performance.

   During their sessions, The Beatles seem most alive when they're playing classic rock tunes -- Blue Suede Shoes, for example. They can sound like the most fantastic bar band imaginable, musicians who share the same fondness for rock and revel in the fun of playing it.

  At times, the movie is ... well ... boring, even a bit infuriating. You want the band to get on with it, to find the focus for their work which Paul acknowledges is missing.

  I'm guessing Jackson knew that he might tax some viewers' patience but he’s taking pains to clarify the difference between creation and performance -- one arduous, repetitive, and frustrating; the other, exhilarating.   

   Beatles enthusiasts will find much to chew over in Jackson's lengthy, fascinating three-part documentary — and I might even return for a second look.

   Several times I thought I’d give up on it. I couldn’t. It was, after all, The Beatles.

   The film is available for viewing on Disney+.