Platinum Music on the Silver Screen--and so joyous!!

Rating: 8/10 (30 September 2009)

A Hard Day's Night (1964)
I've loved the Beatles for as long as I can remember, and I love this movie because of that. I also really groove to the black and white photography, and Richard Lester's jittery, cutting edge camera style (influenced I suppose by the realistic films of Tony Richardson). The mix of mad cap energy and straight ahead songs is fun, and it goes places Elvis movies never did just for creativity and fun. The Beatles are way more edgy but they come off as not a bit jaded or spoiled, none of the bad-boy rocker stuff that gets old fast. In fact, A Hard Day's Night reminds you just how fresh and light the Beatles were in those first couple of years.
There, that is said. Now for the truth about the movie as a narrative film, which I think it has some vague idea it wants to be (music aside). It bumbles around and plays with old (even then) tricks of picking on the old fashioned Britons in a comic way. I sometimes found myself trying to let one scene lead to the next, and really that's not the idea. The happy zany inter- scenes between songs are just inventive, fun, craziness. That probably enough, but if you've seen the movie a couple times already like I have, or if you don't automatically like the Beatles enough just to watch them for who they are, you will probably find your mind drifting. Not that it's not exciting. It's just aimless excitement.
There, now that is said, too. So back to the start. What a fun, uplifting, non-conformist, sharp movie. Nice to see a genuine sense of humor are work, and a bunch of not-so-clean lads letting 'er rip.