A Hard Day's Night. The Beatles Cinematic Odyssey.
John. Paul. George. Ringo.
It's difficult to imagine a time when those four names were not burned into popular culture's lexicon.
But in 1964, The Beatles were just starting their ascent to word super-stardom. They had yet to break America with their astonishing debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, which lifted them to super-stardom. Twenty-three million households saw that performance, a record at the time.
In March of that year, the band began shooting their hugely-influential debut movie, A Hard Day’s Night. Shot in a faux-documentary style by Richard Lester, it featured the band playing “themselves”. A relatively low-budget, six week shoot that was seen as a quick cash-grab by United Artists, looking to tap into the growing reservoir of fans. The film’s overall quality ensured it was anything but.
Incorporating the big cinematic shift of the time, the French New-Wave, the film remains to this day a hilarious, stylistic triumph and one of the greatest British movies ever made, as credited by the BFI in their top 100 list. But why does it continue to resonate with audiences young and old?
To begin with: Style. The film opens with the band running from a legion of Beatles fans to catch a train to London. It opens on momentum and the sound of that opening chord from the title track. It grips you from the very first second.
By: Kev Reynolds
Source:The News Hub
