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Storyline
This series is a documentary on the life and times of the Beatles. It features clips from many of their songs as well as in-depth descriptions of their songs, tours, and lives.
Written by
Marc A. Frigon
Plot Summary
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Trivia
The idea for this retrospective first came up in 1970. Apple Corps collected as much archive footage of the band as they could from around the world. Neil Aspinall then assembled a 90 minute documentary tentatively titled "The Long and Winding Road". Plans for the completion of the project lay dormant until 1980 when all four of the former members of the Beatles agreed to a television special which was to have featured a mini-concert at its conclusion. The project was to have been broadcast sometime in the early 80's. However these plans where interrupted when John Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980.
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Quotes
George Harrison:
[
on The Beatles' second visit to Shea Stadium]
Yeah, okay I don't remember ever going there twice...
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Alternate Versions
A longer 10-hour "director's cut" is available on DVD and contains additional music, interviews and other material not in the televised edition. Some material from the original version, however, is missing in the longer version, including "Real Love".
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Connections
Features
Yellow Submarine (1968)
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Soundtracks
Long Tall Sally
Written by
Enotris Johnson,
Robert 'Bumps' Blackwell and
Little Richard (as Richard Penniman)
Performed by
Little Richard See more »
For a Beatle fan (like me) this 10 hour documentary was both thrilling and just a little disappointing.
Thrilling because all the music has been re-mixed, re-mastered and sounds great, because there are lots of details that, even as I fan, I didn't know, because there's more insight than offered elsewhere into their breakup, and more important, into what held them together.
A good job is done of combining new interviews with the then 3 living Beatles, and recorded interviews with John from many sources, so his views and insights aren't missing.
The last couple of hours go deeper than I suspected, and were quite moving.
On the disappointment side there are a few issues. First, at least for me, much of the first half got repetitive. Not much new insight into the birth or meaning of Beatlemania, just lots (and lots and lots) of concert and TV footage, often of them playing the same songs, sometimes obviously just lip-syncing to records.
Also, their personal lives are left out entirely. I understand not focusing on relationships, etc, but there's virtually no mention of wives, divorces, affairs, children, or how any of that intersected with their music and work.
Last, I was sorry it didn't go deeper into the creation of the music itself. While there are lot of great tidbits from the group and George Martin about specific songs, considering there was 10 hours of program, I didn't get enough of how they worked, how they wrote, how they influenced each other. Nor do we get much of their personal views of the world, politics, etc. And somehow the sense of how much their brief 7 years meant to music and to world culture seems missing, or at least not really explored.
Yet, whatever was missing, I tore through the 10 hours in 2 nights, and would have happily seen more.