"A Hard Day's Night" catches the first flaring of Beatlemania in a manner at once subtle and intelligent. The plot is simple: a day in the life of the Beatles as they try to make it to a performance, burdened by Paul's trouble-making grandfather (Wilfred Brambell); inept reporters, police, and studio moguls; and, of course, hordes of screaming teenage girls. All the while, the Beatles remain as laid back as can be, responding with dry, very British one-liners and shifting easily into melodic musical interludes, such as "Can't Buy Me Love," "All My Lovin'," and "I Wanna Be Your Man." This is the pre-Sergeant Pepper Beatles, and their pleasant, playful enthusiasm mirrors the general innocence of the early sixties, before Vietnam and LSD opened the eyes of millions to political injustices and self-explorations. Nevertheless, A "Hard Day's Night" is more than a wonderful reflective surface. Lester also makes it into a commentary on the interactions of spectacle and perspective in an......
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Approximate Word Count: 1442
Approximate Pages: 6 (260 words per double-spaced page) |