“Beatles ’64” is here.
The documentary, which just debuted on Disney+, investigates the cultural impact of the group’s arrival in America. It’s fascinating and frequently entertaining, utilizing footage that documentary legends Albert and David Maysles shot for a 1964 documentary called “What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A.,” mixed with other contemporaneous footage (lovingly restored using the same process that Peter Jackson used for “Get Back”) and more recent talking head interviews.
And one of those talking head interviews will surely shock you when, out of nowhere, filmmaker David Lynch pops up to talk about his connection to the band. The last project that Lynch directed was 2017’s brain-breaking “Twin Peaks: The Return.” His last feature was “Inland Empire,” released way back in 2006. And he has been battling, fairly publicly, with crippling emphysema which puts any future project in doubt. It was very nice to see him.
This lovely interlude is one of the highlights of “Beatles ’64” – so much so that when we spoke to director David Tedeschi (who worked with Martin Scorsese on the brilliant George Harrison doc “Living in the Material World”) and producer Margaret Bodde, we had to ask where this unexpected cameo came from. (Scorsese is the other producer on the new doc.)
“David had the idea to interview not just people who like the Beatles, because we’d be still making this movie forever. But it was people who’s who had some kind of pivotal, profound reaction or moment when the Beatles first came to the U.S., or when they first heard or saw the Beatles,” Bodde explained. “We had done extensive research on people who had that level of connection and we learned that David Lynch was living in Alexandria, Virginia, with his family. His father was in the Department of Forestry and they moved around a lot, [but at that time] they lived in Alexandria. He had met JFK. Had been at the inauguration of JFK as an Eagle Scout. And then had gotten a ticket to the to the Beatles concert, the first US concert at the Washington Coliseum. We were kind of amazed that he had multiple connections to the story that was being told.”
But was he still as passionate about the Beatles today?
“He loves the Beatles and he knows Paul and Ringo well,” Bodde said. “That’s the other thing that David was interested in – not just the transcendent quality of music and the musical experience, which David Lynch describes so well in the film, but also where the culture went later, during the Beatles evolution into TM and meditation and expand consciousness for themselves. And that trickled down to the audience too.”
Tedeschi added: “I was particularly very enthusiastic about David Lynch talking about music. He has a very unusual passion. And his insights, he has a strong point of view, so we were thrilled.”
Finding people who could talk about the Beatles in a particular way ended up being a challenge. And Lynch was able to hit what Tedeschi was looking for perfectly.
“The real challenge in finding people to talk to is people who could articulate the experience in a way that could give us the whole picture. And David Lynch definitely added something that no one [else could],” Tedeschi said. “He was the last interview we did. And he definitely added something. But tthat was the challenge. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I love in particular at the very beginning, we have a woman who was a fan, who was in front of the Plaza Hotel, who talks about how somehow her spirit and their spirit comes together when she heard their music. She’s not a famous filmmaker but I thought that was a beautiful way to express what listening to music does for us.”
“Beatles ‘64” is on Disney+ right now.
