Tag: The Beatles

March 20, 2017 /

More often than not, image and music exist on separate planes in cinema. Though movies have soundtracks and music videos give visual expression to what is otherwise left for the ear, there are only rare instances – without mentioning musicals, which are more of an adaptation of theatrical sentiment than an indigenously cinematic form – where the audio and the video are so inherently linked that they demand to be considered a whole. These cross-disciplinary experiments are marked by the palpable vitality that can come only from artists in full control of their vision.

September 29, 2014 / / Main Slate Archive

 

A friend said to me recently that she felt that A HARD DAY’S NIGHT was the “basis for reality television.” I found it a repugnant theory at first, because I’m of the idea that reality television is badly scripted drama designed to dumb down the minds of those who watch. Ok, I’m included in that category; there are two shows that I’m fairly addicted to. But, as I sat to write about this film, the idea returned to me: what if this was reality theater in the 1960’s?