 |
| Courtesy Apple Corps Ltd. |
On the latest Things
We Said Today show, we discuss the new “The
Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years” DVD. I've
reviewed it on AXS, but as I
said in the show, I watched “The
Beatles Anthology” before discussing it there. And I said in
the show that the thing that was really noticeable was the huge use
of talking heads that really diluted the story and made it much
lighter.
We (meaning all of us) took “The
Beatles Anthology” for granted. It was so well done, and the
opinions of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, who was
still with us then, were like being on the inside. The John Lennon
comments added a lot as well.
“The
Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years” was not that. It
was a look at the Beatles' touring years from different viewpoints that
included theirs. They called it a documentary, but it was that in the loosest sense of the word. It was really an entertainment
film.
But if there was one thing we wished
they had done with it, it would have been to make it more serious.
And by serious, we mean somber. Those years of touring were
unprecedented in the worldwide reaction. And the Beatles were four
humans. “The Beatles Anthology” hinted at it and I don't expect
we'll ever really know, but the fact they've survived is probably a
miracle. Maybe Ron Howard probably didn't want to go there, but a
different angle other than a P.R. story might have made the film more
interesting.
In the meantime, dig out “The Beatles Anthology”
again and see the story the way they told it themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment