Elvis in Beatles film "Eight Days A Week"

Pretty self-explanatory
Post Reply
sweetest punch
Posts: 5961
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
Location: Belgium

Elvis in Beatles film "Eight Days A Week"

Post by sweetest punch »

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainme ... 1473621420


THE BEATLES: EIGHT DAYS A WEEK — THE TOURING YEARS

Three and a half stars
Director Ron Howard
Starring Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Whoopi Goldberg
Rating M
Running time 138 minutes

Verdict Greatest hits
Is there anything new to say about The Beatles, a band whose entrails have been pored over for more than 50 years?
Probably not.
But Ron Howard’s feature-length documentary, the first to be authorised by the band since its breakup in 1970, offers audiences a well-paced and thoroughly engaging recap.

As the title suggests, Eight Days A Week concentrates on the early touring years, from the fledgling musicians’ performances in Liverpool’s “intimate” Cavern Club to their crazy final concert in San Francisco in 1966.

Unable to hear themselves play, herded into a windowless truck for a safety, it’s little wonder they voted to put a halt to live performances after that.

Howard has access to a treasure trove of raw footage of what the band did best — on stage, on TV, in the studio, and even holed up afterwards in their hotel rooms.

Adding to the sense of revivification are clips from the lads’ early press conferences in which they were clearly having fun with their newly acquired role as pop stars.

There’s a significant political shift in The Beatles’ relationship with the media when the band takes a stand in Jacksonville, Florida, refusing to play before racially -segregated audiences.

But it’s the controversy sparked by John Lennon’s flippant “more popular than Jesus” comment that exposes them to the full force of a public backlash.

“By the end it became quite complicated, but at the beginning, things were really quite simple,’’ observes Paul McCartney, who Howard interviews along with Ringo Starr.

John Lennon and George Harrison contribute via archival clips.

Elvis Costello, screenwriter Richard Curtis (Love Actually) and Whoopi Goldberg are amongst a somewhat eclectic bunch of celebrities who recount their personal experience of the band.

Eight Days a Week is an upbeat re-examination of The Beatles’ impressive early oeuvre. It successfully captures a poignant turning point in their relationship with fame but stops well short of the period in which the band unravelled.

Yoko Ono’s stony face, as she observes The Beatles’ final public performance on the roof of Abbey Road Studios, piques interest in what would likely be a sharper-edged “sequel.”

Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years opens in cinemas on September 16 for one week only.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
Posts: 5961
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
Location: Belgium

Re: Elvis in Beatles film "Eight Days A Week"

Post by sweetest punch »

Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
johnfoyle
Posts: 14852
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Re: Elvis in Beatles film "Eight Days A Week"

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on ... w-11887235


While the film’s focus is on their gruelling tours around the world, there’s a starring role there too for Liverpool.

“There’s that great shot where you see everyone singing acapella on the Kop,” says the film’s director Ron Howard, referring back to the scenes in the film from 1964 where the Anfield crowd sing She Loves You.

“Then there’s Elvis Costello, who is a huge fan and said he’d talk, that brought a lot of additional focus to Liverpool.
sulky lad
Posts: 2425
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Out of the kitchen,she's gone with the wind

Re: Elvis in Beatles film "Eight Days A Week"

Post by sulky lad »

I expect the Scouseness of his accent will somehow come to the fore in this interview then - just like when I meet the clan at the Philharmonic - sometimes people think Bradwell Boy, Colin TC and John and I are all brothers :roll:
User avatar
Top balcony
Posts: 923
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:48 pm
Location: Liverpool

Re: Elvis in Beatles film "Eight Days A Week"

Post by Top balcony »

sulky lad wrote: sometimes people think Bradwell Boy, Colin TC and John and I are all brothers :roll:
We are!

Colin TB
johnfoyle
Posts: 14852
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Re: Elvis in Beatles film "Eight Days A Week"

Post by johnfoyle »

Having been through umpteen rehashes of the Beatles story over the last few decades , I approached this film with a rather jaded mind set. I've given up following most coverage of the Fabs, preferring to just listen to the music and appreciate hearing as new the inventiveness that it featured. A friends ten year old daughter is crazy about them , doesn't really know the backstory , just loves the sounds , so their sound truly transcends generations.

This film didn't alter my mind set. There was never a moment where I felt an entirely new aspect was revealed. I found myself constantly noticing technical aspects. A huge amount of footage is colorised. Quite why was puzzling. Long familiar sequences, concerts/tv shows/press conferences, appear in original monochrome and then similar sequences would appear in a riot of primary colours . Expertly done but so obvious. Similarly the soundtrack was a polished synthesis of studio/live/ambient sound. Both surviving Beatles hair dye jobs are so obvious on the big screen. The complete absence of Pete Best in any photos in the backstory sequences is particularly obvious, with some very pointed cropping - ludicrous since even Jimmy Nichol appears in one photo. Why the rooftop sequence from '69 was used is a mystery, a dilution of any impact the account of the '62-'66 story that is the film's focus. By the way , that footage still looks rather ropy , indicating that the continuing unavailability of Let It Be may be on account of it being beyond acceptable restoration. The longest parts of the credit sequence were given over to the production crews for the interview sequences with Paul ( and U.S. & a U.K. location, by the way) and Ringo. Since both just sit there and trot out the usual lines its hard to figure what all the multitude of set designers etc were doing.

There a similar credit sequence for a production crew in Vancouver so I guess that's where Elvis was filmed. He offers up neat soundbite versions of the many pieces he has written or talked up over the years. Maybe seeing & hearing it in a home viewing setup might confirm it but I could swear I heard quite a few edits , Elvis's profuseness maybe being more than was necessary for the ongoing cavalcade of fabness.

The best part of the whole production was the thirty minutes of the Shea Stadium footage that was shown after the film. After all the gimmickry it was great to see the band doing and seemingly enjoying the madness of it all. The exuberance on George & John's faces as they crowded around the the keyboard as they bashed out their parts on I'm Down tells it all. The sparsely attended screening I was at included a row of blokes in , I'd guess , their twenties. They did the usual 'phone checking etc during the film. They stayed for the Shea footage , unlike a lot of people. But they left about half way through it. Perhaps it's raw , cinéma vérité style was just too challenging after the smörgåsbord of film tricks that was the main feature. Their loss.
Post Reply