Beatles '95 page 2
"The Beatles Anthology" is supposed to be the "definitive" history of the band, but their separate recollections (John Lennon's perspective is included via archival interview footage) often differ widely. For instance, they can't agree on whether they smoked dope or cigarettes in the bathroom before being decorated by Queen Elizabeth. And there's no unifying narration to sort things out. Some of the rare material, like a color clip of a rambunctious performance of "I'm Down,'' is truly remarkable. But a lot of it is already available (notably, in the fine 1982 documentary "The Compleat Beatles"). And then there's the little matter of Lennon's murder, which is never mentioned. Talk about selective memory.
For a project of such magnitude (it was four years in the making), "The Beatles Anthology" seems oddly pointless. Unless, of course, you're looking at it from a financial perspective, and then it makes perfect sense. Attention Christmas shoppers: The documentary makes a handy six-hour commercial for Tuesday's release of Capitol's double CD "The Beatles Anthology, Vol. 1," featuring material from the vaults as well as the new "Free as a Bird," which the surviving Beatles recorded using an unfinished Lennon vocal track.
It's not that Beatlemania wasn't a marketing triumph in its day, as anyone who ever begged Mom and Dad for a Beatles lunchbox or a bobbing headed Paul doll knows. It's just that this round of Beatlesell is so joyless, so depressingly obvious. Beatles '95 is just another corporate crusade, like Windows '95, designed to whip consumers into a frenzy of acquisition anxiety. Ultimately, it's just one more thing you could live without, if only you had the nerve.
"It's only a rock group that's splitting up, you have all the old records there if you want to reminisce," we hear Lennon say, curtly, in Thursday's finale and, as usual, he had a point.
"The Beatles Anthology" poignantly illustrates the relationship between memory and technology. Record companies convinced most of us that vinyl was too fragile to be entrusted with our music; we bought our favorite albums all over again on CD. Camcorders became necessities because Baby's first Christmas and Junior's first soccer game were too important to document in mere photographs. We fear that unless we go for the upgrade, our memories, our lives, will scratch, fade and disappear.
When does the urge to preserve the precious past cross over into fetish? The denial of Lennon's death in "The Beatles Anthology," and the crypt-robbing "Free as a Bird' (and its companion single "Real Love," due to debut on Wednesday's segment) is creepy and delusional. Yes, we want our idols to live forever. But not literally, not like this.
And what does it say about the march of technology that the highlight of "The Beatles Anthology," Sunday's seamlessly edited clip-a-thon of the Beatles lip-syncing to "Twist and Shout," centers on the most perfect 2:33 of wild, ragged energy and crazed rock 'n' roll communality ever committed to vinyl?
"It's only a rock group that's splitting up, you have all the old records there if you want to reminisce," we hear Lennon say, curtly, in Thursday's finale and, as usual, he had a point.
Just remember that the first time you bought those records, you bought them out of love.