Word: film
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...forces behind the film were a curious mixture of talents who eschewed such a cynical approach. It started with the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein. An urbane, failed drama student, he had found his metier with the Beatles. He discovered them brash and raw, and without changing their music he shaped them and made them presentable for a mass audience that suckled on the television tube. No TV show in Britain (let alone America) would have embraced the leather-clad Beatles. The foppish suits and Olde World charm of that little bow at the end of each set sugar-coated...
...such was Epstein's conviction that he was picky about every thing the group did. He turned down several film offers for the group before accepting the approach of one Walter Shenson, an American in London. Shenson's best calling card was that he had worked with Peter Sellers on a 1959 film "The Mouse That Roared...
...shows were a '50s foreshadow of Monty Python. Just as they took to their record producer, George Martin, because he had produced comedy records with Sellers and the Goons, so they felt a kinship with Shenson. At this point, Shenson could have easily opted for a standard pop film formula. A sitcom writer could devise a fluffy story involving the boys, leaving space for a few jaunty numbers. And a competent TV director could shape it up into a palatable confection. The studio and fans would have been content...
...that was not Shenson's style. With the studio already happy that it would make its money back from the soundtrack album, Shenson struck bold notes. He hired a talented fellow American-in-exile, Richard Lester, to direct the film. Lester had worked with Sellers and Milligan and was a swift-witted TV and film director, alert to the strains of the New Cinema, including the naturalism of handheld cameras and kinetically paced shooting and editing...
...Shenson, Lester and Owen decided on a comedic day-in-the-life film and spent a few days on the road with the Beatles as they prepared for their upcoming American debut. Within a week of that momentous "Ed Sullivan" debut, British TV was showing a slapdash documentary of the Beatles on that landmark February 1964 visit. The instant documentary was shot by Albert and David Maysles (later to find fame with their Rolling Stones/Altamont documentary "Gimme Shelter." Lester saw it and instantly grasped its significance. If he could capture that crackling energy in a fictionalized form the film would...