“Beatles ’64” was one of the most anticipated releases at the end of 2024, by virtue of Martin Scorsese’s signature and above all by taking us back to February 1964, when the Beatles landed in America, to embrace that iconicity, that everlasting fame, which he would have transformed them into the very symbol of an era and a generation. Between vintage footage, interviews and music, the one on Disney+ is a journey into the past halfway between nostalgia and behind the scenes, capable of making us understand the full importance of that moment.

“Beatles ’64” – the plot

“Beatles ’64” is a unique journey through time, with which David Tedeschi (director) and Martin Scorsese (here as producer) take us back into those two weeks, in February 1964, where the Beatles arrived in the United States and became in short, the musical phenomenon par excellence. A real revolution, which comes to life through the images that were recorded at the time by Albert and David Maysles, who followed the band step by step in New York, Miami, Washington. But above all, the Beatles ended up on American television, but above all in the hearts and minds of an entire generation, which had recently buried President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and was thirsty for dreams, illusions, the promise of a different future . That promise arrived to the tune of “She Loves You” from the Ed Sullivan Show, the temple of entertainment on the small screen, and then conquered the rest of the country, which was trying to recover its innocence, to regain the illusion of a future radiant. Soon they would end up in the whirlpool of Vietnam, but in the meantime there were Paul, John, Ringo and George, with ankle boots, bangs and those notes, dominating their present.

The editing carried out by David Tedeschi is transversal, because in addition to the splendid and very real images of the Maysles, interviews given ad hoc by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr also emerge, then those of John Lennon and George Harrison, of many and many protagonists of those days, of those years, of Beatlemania which changed the relationship between young audiences and the recording industry forever. Of course, “Beatles ’64” becomes a journey back in time, when the first, true, great boyband moved to the tune of what many at the time dismissed as songs. They weren’t, inside every boy and girl around the age of twenty they found their own world, their own desire to feel young and different from their fathers, from the world that they wanted to give them as identical and immutable. It is therefore not wrong to see in this documentary the snapshot of a moment that precedes another, that protest which from Paris would finally find its habitat in the States prepared precisely by a musical revolution that those 4 boys from Liverpool brought from 7 to February 21, 1964, without anyone immediately understanding it.

A documentary capable of enlightening us on an unrepeatable historical moment

“Beatles ’64” is edited in a fluid, coherent way, magnificent in its evocative power and ability to make us feel close to that multitude of smiles, voices, shouts, so similar to those of today, to the teenagers of the 21st century, and yet also so different. The most important point is the transversality of his gaze, his showing us History as it unfolds not only a few steps away from those kids who are ecstatic to realize that America is loving them, but from ordinary people, from parents who are astonished to see their daughters and the children freak out in front of a television. It is not the first time that cinema has dealt with those February days, the same Maysles material has had multiple versions and multiple editions, but “Bealtes ’64” has a complex restoration and reassembly operation on its side, with numerous unpublished inserts , intimate moments from private or unpublished footage, completing a musical puzzle of incredible relevance. “Beatles ’64” has on its side the power of a musical concept in which the notes of four guys could still change the world, in which the spontaneous, the revolutionary was still possible, far from the extreme and relentless commercialism of today.

“Bealtes ’64” is engaging, profound, it is above all distant from idealization, from sacredness, which may seem like a paradox if we consider that no musical group in history has been more celebrated and idolized than the Bealtes. Yet what we get is the synthesis of an unconscious ride, of four boys led by Brian Epstein who didn’t know, didn’t understand or perhaps didn’t care about what was happening, they were too caught up in the moment, in having arrived in America . It was America still the land of dreams, where success was truly true success, incredible, unforgettable, all-encompassing, which was born thanks to “Love Me Do,” “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “All My Loving” and “With Love From Me to You,” which changed their lives forever. No one in the musical panorama of our time can boast a similar impact, not Taylor Swift, not Lady Gaga, nor who knows who else. This is because, and “Beatles ’64” ruthlessly reminds us of this, pop culture has disappeared, with it the youth subculture, music has become fashion as an end in itself, studied down to the smallest detail. Something that the Fab 4 even in those days knew how to avoid.

Rating: 8