Director David Tedeschi has been working with Martin Scorsese for a number of years, most notably as editor on Scorsese’s faux Bob Dylan documentary Rolling Thunder Revue. The two also co-directed a work with performer David Johansen, Personality Crisis: One Night Only.
But with Beatles ’64, Tedeschi fully takes the reigns (with Scorsese producing and conducting interviews) to tell the story of the band’s first visit to America, including a couple of appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was particularly meaningful to the band because it was the first place they saw their hero, Elvis Presley, perform. Using rare and never-before-scene archival footage, the film also attempts to give a sense of what day-to-day life in America was like for the Fab Four just as Beatlemania was kicking off.
The film begins on February 7, 1964, when The Beatles land as JFK Airport to a level of hysteria that had never before been seen stateside. In fact, it scared parents so much, they tried to stop their kids from listening to the band and prevent radio stations from playing their music. More than 73 million people watched them make their Ed Sullivan Show debut—the most watched television event up to that time. And while the thousands of fans lining the streets of New York to catch a glimpse is impressive, the film’s real surprise is capturing John, Paul, George and Ringo come together, trying to take it all in and understand their new level of fame.
The sheer volume of press attention they had to endure, the incessant questions about their hair and the masses of people who didn’t like them would be enough to make most insane, but their energy and sense of humor carried them through. The filmmakers also incorporate interviews with all four members from many years after The Beatles broke up, looking back on that time, including two brand-new conversations with McCartney and Starr (plus great archival chats with Lennon and Harrison). We also get interviews with fans who were teenagers when The Beatles hit America, trying to explain their unprecedented enthusiasm, including one man who visited Liverpool without a visa and later went on to edit tape for John Lennon, with surprising results.
Much of the archival material from 1964 was filmed by pioneering documentarians Albert and David Maysles, restored in 4K by Park Road Post in New Zealand (much like Peter Jackson’s Get Back doc series). In addition, there are live performances from The Beatles’ first American concert at the Washington, D.C. Coliseum, which, along with their Ed Sullivan appearances, were de-mixed by Jackson’s WingNut Films and remixed by Giles Martin. The film and audio quality is fantastic, as is Tedeschi’s ability to capture and contextualize both the spectacle and the friendship. Beatles ’64 is a fairly straight-forward telling of a remarkable year in music, coming only a few months after Kennedy’s assassination disrupted the country. It gives the fans as much love as it does the band members, all of whom were trying to figure out just what the hell was going on in those days.
The film begins streaming Friday exclusively on Disney+.
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