Beatles ’64 is a fun but mostly minor Beatles documentary
60 years later, a look back on the Fab Four’s arrival in America
Let’s be honest: When you heard a documentary was coming out called Beatles ’64, you knew exactly what it was, right?
Yes, the doc, directed by longtime Martin Scorsese editor David Tedeschi and debuted this week on Disney+, examines the Beatles’ arrival in the United States in early 1964, for their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The film combines restored footage shot back in ’64 by the legendary documentarians Albert and David Maysles, — already released, on TV back then, as What’s Happening! The Beatles In The U.S.A. — with modern testimonials from the two living Beatles and others, as well as fans who were affected by the Beatles’ arrival. This includes some surprising faces, including David Lynch and Jamie Bernstein, Leonard's daughter.
Scorsese is an executive producer and appears in footage a couple of times; Paul, Ringo, and the widows of John and George are among the producers.
If you’re a Beatles fan, and especially if you lived through these events, you’re going to love this, and you’re going to hear a lot of the music you love. The film, though, has nothing especially new or unconventional to say about these events.
Yes, it starts with the JFK assassination and later gets into how the Beatles’ arrival helped America recover from the hangover. Yes, there is an examination of the screaming girls who greeted them everywhere they went, the cultural impact of their haircuts, and even a detour into how the Fab Four were influenced by the Black musicians who came before.
The Beatles are a lot like Muhammad Ali, in the sense that there have been documentaries made about practically every aspect of their story over the 60 years since this all happened, and we may now be reaching the upper limit of documentaries on the subject.
While certainly enjoyable, Beatles ’64 is not as hyper-ambitious as The Beatles Anthology from the mid-1990s, or Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back, which arrived three years ago, also over Thanksgiving and also on Disney+. The original Let It Be, after it was unavailable for decades, is also now streaming on Disney+, although don’t expect nearly as much conflict among the lads in Beatles ’64 as in the two docs about their later years.
As someone who got obsessed with the Beatles as a teenager in the ‘90s, I can appreciate any new Beatles content that can introduce the band to younger generations. And while Beatles ’64 dutifully captures that specific moment from six decades ago, it’s neither the best nor the most complete Beatles documentary.