"A Hard Day's Night"

Sorry for the absence of posts everyone! I'm just getting back into the swing of things here at college and it's hard to try and find time to keep up with the blog. Last night I watched The Beatles in "A Hard Day's Night" for my College Writing class and my professor told us to think about whether this movie was still relevant in 2011 or if it had become "dated" over the years. And it's been a while since I've reviewed a movie so below I've included my response to this prompt. Enjoy.

Despite being made in black and white over forty-five years ago, The Beatles shine in “A Hard Day’s Night” and the core of the movie is still understandable and true today. The film has hardly “dated” at all, there is little that we do not understand because we are living in such a different time period. There are several reasons for this. The first reason is the legend of The Beatles has lasted this long and this movie is part of the legend of The Beatles. If you ask people today, a large majority will praise The Beatles as the greatest band of all time. A band is only as good as its music and we still know and listen to The Beatles music all the time today (especially with their full catalogue now available on iTunes). Since this movie is first and foremost about the music of The Beatles and they are performing for most of the movie it is easy for us to understand and enjoy all the scenes of them performing their songs. Second, when The Beatles are not performing they are generally being chased around by their adoring fans, which are mostly comprised of screaming teenage girls. This phenomenon is familiar with us today, for a variety of acts ranging from rock (Coldplay) to rap (Kanye West) to pop (Jonas Brothers). In fact, the Jonas Brothers even stole the idea of being chased down the street by fans for the opening scene of their movie “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience.” Finally, the goal of the movie when it was released (other than making tons of money) was to foster the idea that The Beatles were just four normal (very talented) guys from Liverpool. They want to have fun, go out at night, avoid work and in the end they are only human. This works just as well today as it did in 1964. We all grow up with the idea that The Beatles are some sort of music gods; even Lennon declared that The Beatles “are bigger than Jesus.” Coupled with his assassination in 1980 Lennon has become this mystical figure that generations after him hardly understand. “A Hard Day’s Night” shows us a little into the personality of Lennon that is never seen anymore. But overall, The Beatles are just regular guys, they crack jokes, they look for the fun in everything and they want to go out and meet girls. In 1964 this was the first time many had seen The Beatles (other than The Ed Sullivan Show) and it was their primary base of knowledge about the band. For people now in 2011 with biographies and YouTube and countless documentaries we know (or think we know) quite a bit about The Beatles. This movie has not dated at all and if anything improves our knowledge and appreciation of The Beatles more than it did for the people watching it in 1964.