A film which concentrates on the short musical and artistic career of Stuart Sutcliffe, the Scottish-born bass player from the days when the Beatles were a quintet playing the Reeperbahn of Hamburg, and his love affair with the German artist Astrid Kircherr.
I suppose there are two types of people who will watch this film: those who know little or nothing about the Beatles's time in Hamburg, and those who do. The former will probably enjoy the film for what it is; the latter will find it annoying. I am sorry to say that I am in the latter camp. There are so many historical inaccuracies that it is hardly worth listing them. The most annoying to me was the placing of the recording of "My Bonnie" before Stuart Suttcliffe had left the band. I thought that was totally unnecessary. Another inaccuracy is depicting Paul McCartney trying to kick Suttcliffe out of the band so that he could take over the bass. Also, the length of Astrid's hair is based on a self photograph of hers. Contemporary photographs show her with shoulder length hair.
As well as the Beatles themselves, who walk onstage and start to play without plugging their guitars in, the film also features the real life characters Astrid Kirchherr, Cynthia Powell Lennon and Klaus Voormann, who are named, and Bruno Koschmidder and Tony Sheridan, who are not.
Since John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe are dead, the film makers can imply that the pair had homosexual feelings for one another and not get sued.
The rest of the Beatles are reduced to one dimensional cutouts: the serious one, the quiet one, the cipher.
That's what the film got wrong. Let us see what the film got right.
When you look at an historical film - especially one that covers a period within living memory - one can find lots of anachronisms with the fashions of the time. Normally I will home in on half a dozen things that were not around in 1960/61. Not in this film. The shooting and direction - apart from the little melodrama at Sutcliffe's death - was good, and the scene where Sutcliffe spazzed out and threw red paint all over the bathroom was excellent, the red paint signifying blood, as though a murder had been committed.
But alas the scriptwriters were not up to the same standard as the wardrobe department, the cameramen, the musicians and the director, and I found titles of Beatles songs yet to be written, like "Hard Day's Night" and "Eight Days a Week," being worked into the script utterly ridiculous. What were the scriptwriters trying to do?
I suppose there are two types of people who will watch this film: those who know little or nothing about the Beatles's time in Hamburg, and those who do. The former will probably enjoy the film for what it is; the latter will find it annoying. I am sorry to say that I am in the latter camp. There are so many historical inaccuracies that it is hardly worth listing them. The most annoying to me was the placing of the recording of "My Bonnie" before Stuart Suttcliffe had left the band. I thought that was totally unnecessary. Another inaccuracy is depicting Paul McCartney trying to kick Suttcliffe out of the band so that he could take over the bass. Also, the length of Astrid's hair is based on a self photograph of hers. Contemporary photographs show her with shoulder length hair.
As well as the Beatles themselves, who walk onstage and start to play without plugging their guitars in, the film also features the real life characters Astrid Kirchherr, Cynthia Powell Lennon and Klaus Voormann, who are named, and Bruno Koschmidder and Tony Sheridan, who are not.
Since John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe are dead, the film makers can imply that the pair had homosexual feelings for one another and not get sued.
The rest of the Beatles are reduced to one dimensional cutouts: the serious one, the quiet one, the cipher.
That's what the film got wrong. Let us see what the film got right.
When you look at an historical film - especially one that covers a period within living memory - one can find lots of anachronisms with the fashions of the time. Normally I will home in on half a dozen things that were not around in 1960/61. Not in this film. The shooting and direction - apart from the little melodrama at Sutcliffe's death - was good, and the scene where Sutcliffe spazzed out and threw red paint all over the bathroom was excellent, the red paint signifying blood, as though a murder had been committed.
But alas the scriptwriters were not up to the same standard as the wardrobe department, the cameramen, the musicians and the director, and I found titles of Beatles songs yet to be written, like "Hard Day's Night" and "Eight Days a Week," being worked into the script utterly ridiculous. What were the scriptwriters trying to do?