Back in the Sixties when I was a mere teenager I read some of the stories about the Beatles and the background they came from. I knew of Stuart Sutcliffe and his story only months before the Beatles came into the consciousness of America.
But until I saw Backbeat I did not KNOW Stuart Sutcliffe and the curious triangular relationship with John Lennon and German photographer Astrid Kirschner. Seeing Backbeat I do feel I was transported back to Liverpool and Hamburg of the early sixties and the origins of what became the Beatles.
Sutcliffe was a good friend of John Lennon who was part of the group he and Paul McCartney put together back in the days when they were searching for an image and a sound. Sutcliffe had his own ambitions however, he was a talented artist. He also had an irreversible brain tumor and a guaranteed limited time on earth.
I think that Stephen Dorff's background from a musical family no doubt helped in portraying Stuart Sutcliffe. I had seen Dorff previously in The Power of One and was amazed at his uncanny ability to get an Afrikanse accent right in a South African story. He does similarly here with not a British accent, but a Liverpudlian one. He certainly got no complaints from white South Africans or Liverpudlians for either film. He's got the best ear for speech patterns this side of Robert Mitchum.
Sheryl Lee is a fetching Astrid Kirschner, beloved of Sutcliffe and possibly of Lennon also. Ian Hart plays John Lennon, not the poet of Give Peace a Chance, but an angry working class kid from Liverpool who wants to succeed in the music business. It's like looking in young Lennon's soul.
The other Beatles are there, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Peter Best and there's a brief appearance by Ringo Starr who was drumming for another band and would be the piece that completed the revolutionary quartet eventually. But that's after this story finished.
And the story is really about John Lennon and his good friends Astrid and Stu. For as long as the Beatles performed and as long as he performed there was a bit of Stuart Sutcliffe in their music, Lennon saw to that.
But until I saw Backbeat I did not KNOW Stuart Sutcliffe and the curious triangular relationship with John Lennon and German photographer Astrid Kirschner. Seeing Backbeat I do feel I was transported back to Liverpool and Hamburg of the early sixties and the origins of what became the Beatles.
Sutcliffe was a good friend of John Lennon who was part of the group he and Paul McCartney put together back in the days when they were searching for an image and a sound. Sutcliffe had his own ambitions however, he was a talented artist. He also had an irreversible brain tumor and a guaranteed limited time on earth.
I think that Stephen Dorff's background from a musical family no doubt helped in portraying Stuart Sutcliffe. I had seen Dorff previously in The Power of One and was amazed at his uncanny ability to get an Afrikanse accent right in a South African story. He does similarly here with not a British accent, but a Liverpudlian one. He certainly got no complaints from white South Africans or Liverpudlians for either film. He's got the best ear for speech patterns this side of Robert Mitchum.
Sheryl Lee is a fetching Astrid Kirschner, beloved of Sutcliffe and possibly of Lennon also. Ian Hart plays John Lennon, not the poet of Give Peace a Chance, but an angry working class kid from Liverpool who wants to succeed in the music business. It's like looking in young Lennon's soul.
The other Beatles are there, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Peter Best and there's a brief appearance by Ringo Starr who was drumming for another band and would be the piece that completed the revolutionary quartet eventually. But that's after this story finished.
And the story is really about John Lennon and his good friends Astrid and Stu. For as long as the Beatles performed and as long as he performed there was a bit of Stuart Sutcliffe in their music, Lennon saw to that.