Ownership is up for grabs in the 21st century

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2019)

Oscar. Apple. Olympics. Bond. Beatles. Boyle asks his own phenomenon from his hyper90s counter culture roots resting comfortably inside an exploration of impostor syndrome. Now it is one of the defining questions ahead of us, specifically for the dearth of culture encircling us is this notion of authorship being on the same spectrum as our great debates in identity; as in the right to ownership not a tangible notion. This is not just music but a kind of test of western privilege. Who hasn't thought of the exact concept? But to actually go there is almost a cultural event, to peel into our counterfeit solipsism in search of their yearning for authenticity. That is not a judgment, but an endpoint in late stage capitalism rendering the individual dreamer as something from 'yesterday'. At first it is indeed him and not the music so he fails, until it second guesses itself that no, it is the music. It posits with the frame of art, real life is the gimmick; then adopting the frame becomes the frame. Identity. So the question of interest is not 'what if the Beatles' but, what if millennials, in wearing said identity, had a soul? Okay but then what if there was a World War in the 80s to lead to such identities? As to what sort of cultural madness could lead to the Beatles requires some great collective trauma or societal movement to unite a culture in a renaissance. So what is the millennial war? As is, escalating streamlining of privilege was our renaissance. Millennial cultural reactions are now fragments of regurgitation then our lack of culture becomes the subject bringing a hall of mirrors to show identities for choosing. We envied stuff once happened. It all reflects this complex prism of Boyle's self-insert in impostor syndrome; he began as an enfant-terrible after all so his success may be, on some level, a confusion for him. Here, the 60s without the 60s in the vessel of the millennial power fantasy it's basically yet another look at the Beatles through a deconstructing lens; they are, after all, so iconic and ingrained, even archetypal, that films exploring them tend to be conceptual, even metaphysical as their era championed such play with their elfish pranking. Films about the Beatles were always sort of postmodern gags. Adapted for today in the post-youtube age they come to reflect where youth meets the hyper age, and the fallout; lo and behold cultural renaissances are a threat. The millennial war was technological. With all things equal in the algorithm, all of those YouTube stars got too big, the war was corporate in nature against 'you' actually tubing... which puts The Beatles with today at a discrepancy: a counter-culture in an age where the war is against culture... and the best compliment I can give is the film does seem to account for this, in fact its entire purpose is to explore the divide. "We remember those songs." Rather they once remember there was a society. The film contrasts culture with society interestingly enough. Lennon's peaceful life came at the cost of a meaningful one: in this black mirror what if we are so lazy and complacent other people are writing our own songs, so we live every life at once. This is the exact convenience of post-culture, post-capitalistic streamlining, automation, post-individual, post-heroes journey, now hero being collectivist no longer requiring us. Thus in the frame of revolution, without war, art is the battleground. All this could ring horribly false but Boyle is too smart that he nudges subtext constantly. For the criticism of Yesterday with how the global infringes on the western accomplishment as a middle finger to capitalism's cherished heroes, I think he is aware of every problem with this being a giant tantrum, and actively counters with his craft. His best weapon is the simple sincerity of the lead performance in turmoil. The impostor woeful against the 60s. Fast after learning it's about the music, he learns it's not about the music at all. So it goes to love. Contrast the sociopath executive with Jack where somehow both in their artifice create two distinct halves. See the betrayal being exactly like a lover scorned. 'What if millennials had soul?' They would meet other millennials without it. 'What if music?' What if not? This comes at the time of his realization in feeling. So it's two loves: the childhood love and the proxy love with the exec, but love is the millennial love for themselves. The songs were a narcissistic proxy--no longer about an age, but revealing his desire for stardom for its own sake--and here is where cinema and music so abstractly collide for pointing the camera at something invisible, which all the best films do, it's that every song seems to push him deeper, as these lists of women the Beatles sang about were all post-it notes and he's watching people who lived life, lived culture, and reflected it back as a voice of a generation, and a generation who received and understood 'why', sees it all missing here. Malik comes to learn the most authentic way of being the music is the love on the table. In fact, he has to learn it directly from Lennon! The film's irony, weren't the songs enough? Blasting 'love' over and over? Rather the songs are not songs but monoliths he sings without understanding them. The millennial frame becomes Lennon's. Enlightenment ensues. "All you need is love" he finally gets it after thousands of performances. Most fascinating for me is how the frame of the songs suddenly makes this loser feel like a deity to us...despite we very well know the lie. Even -we- deceive ourselves inside this con of identity persuasion, hence today in every form. My favorite is the utter dread we feel that the lie would be exposed, which are almost like jump scares. This is where it stands that Boyle is so close to being a grandmaster of cinema that he can tweak and maneuver the film to thoroughly exhaust every single perspective. But he's only close in his humility; he's right there with us constantly asking and prodding and tearing his hair out about the Beatles asking 'how'. Boyle humbly steps back as a Sheeran not John though we see his virtuosity in an experimental pop frame and tip our caps how his career trajectory has some Beatles-ish mischief flowing through his veins. That its conclusion about authorship is not so clear is a subtle one. He was, after all, the author of the songs in the parallel world, and was needed to represent something missing from the world, as all artists feel. The most Beatles like thing to do would have been to own it. The oldies morally excused him after all. Rather it must end with an authentic moral act, and my problem is love was no victory in the frame of his ascent to greatness, which ended with a shrug; wouldn't years and years of channeling the greats have rubbed off on him? Wouldn't finding his authenticity finally give him something to write about? I wanted one of his own songs to be received there within the tracklists between the hits.