Still fab after 60 years: how The Beatlesâ A Hard Dayâs Night made pop cinema history
<div class="theconversation-article-body"><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alison-blair-223267">Alison Blair</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-otago-1304">University of Otago</a></em></p>
<p>I first saw A Hard Dayâs Night at a film festival over 20 years ago, at the insistence of my mum. By then, it was already decades old, but I remember being enthralled by its high-spirited energy.</p>
<p>A Beatles fan, mum had introduced me to the bandâs records in my childhood. At home, we listened to Please Please Me, the bandâs 1963 single, and the Rubber Soul album from 1965, which I loved.</p>
<p>Television regularly showed old black-and-white scenes of Beatlemania that, to a ten-year-old in the neon-lit 1980s, seemed like ancient history. But then, Iâd never seen a full-length Beatles film. I had no idea what I was in for.</p>
<p>When the lights went down at Dunedinâs Regent Theatre, the opening chord of the filmâs title song announced its intentions: an explosion of youthful vitality, rhythmic visuals, comical high jinks and the electrifying thrill of Beatlemania in 1964.</p>
<p>This time, it didnât seem ancient at all.</p>
<p>Since that first viewing, Iâve returned to A Hard Dayâs Night again and again. I now show it to my students as a historically significant example of pop music film making â visually inventive cinema, emblematic of a fresh era in youth culture, popular music and fandom.</p>
<h2>Beatlemania on celluloid</h2>
<p>A musical comedy depicting a chaotic 36 hours in the life of the Beatles, A Hard Dayâs Night has now reached its 60th anniversary.</p>
<p>Directed by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0504513/">Richard Lester</a>, the film premiered in London on July 6 1964, with its first public screening a day later (incidentally, also Ringo Starrâs birthday), and the <a href="https://www.discogs.com/master/24003-The-Beatles-A-Hard-Days-Night">album of the same name</a> released on July 10.</p>
<p>The bandâs popularity was by then reaching dizzying heights of hysteria, all reflected in the film. The Beatles are chased by hordes of fans, take a train trip, appear on TV, run from the police in a Keystone Cops-style sequence, and play a televised concert in front of screaming real-life Beatles fans.</p>
<p>Side one of the album provides the soundtrack, and the film inspired pop music film and video from then on, from the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060010/">Monkees TV series</a> (1966â68) to the Spice Girlsâ <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120185/">Spice World</a> (1997) and music videos as we know them today.</p>
<h2>The original music video</h2>
<p>Postwar teen culture and consumerism had been on the rise since the 1950s. In 1960s Britain, youth music TV programmes, notably <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0196287/">Ready Steady Go!</a> (1963â66), meant pop music now had a developing visual culture.</p>
<p>The youthful zest and vitality of â60s London was reflected in the pop-cultural sensibility, modern satirical humour and crisp visual impact of A Hard Dayâs Night.</p>
<p>Influenced by <a href="https://nofilmschool.com/french-new-wave-cinema">French New Wave</a> film making, and particularly the early 1960s work of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000419/">Jean-Luc Godard</a>, A Hard Dayâs Night employs <em><a href="https://indiefilmhustle.com/cinema-verite/">cinĂ©ma vĂ©ritĂ©</a></em>-style hand-held cinematography, brisk jump cuts, unusual framing and dynamic angles, high-spirited action, and a self-referential nonchalance.</p>
<p>The film also breaks the âfourth wallâ, with characters directly addressing the audience in closeup, and reveals the apparatus of the visual performance of music: cameras and TV monitors are all part of the frame.</p>
<p>Cutting the shots to the beat of the music â as in the Canât Buy Me Love sequence â lends a visual rhythm that would later become the norm in music video editing. Lester developed this technique further in the second Beatles film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059260/">Help!</a> (1965).</p>
<p>The closing sequence of A Hard Dayâs Night is possibly the filmâs most dynamic: photographic images of the band edited to the beat in the style of stop-motion animation. Sixty years on, it still feels fresh, especially as so much contemporary film making remains hidebound by formulaic Hollywood rules.</p>
<figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="A Hard Day's Night movie poster" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new pop aesthetic: original film poster for A Hard Dayâs Night.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure>
<h2>Slapstick and class awareness</h2>
<p>As with much popular culture from the past, the humour in A Hard Dayâs Night doesnât always doesnât land the way it would have in 1964. And yet, there are moments that seem surprisingly modern in their razor-sharp irony.</p>
<p>In particular, the bandâs Liverpudlian working-class-lad jibes and chaotic energy contrast brilliantly with the filmâs upper-class characters. Actor Victor Spinettiâs comically over-anxious TV director, constantly hand-wringing over the boysâ rebelliousness, underscores the era-defining change the Beatles represented.</p>
<p>Corporate pop-culture consumerism is also satirised. John Lennon âsnortsâ from a Coca-Cola bottle, a moment so knowingly silly it registers as more contemporary than it really is. George Harrison deflects a journalistâs banal questions with scathingly witty answers, and cuts a fashion company down to size by describing their shirt designs as âgrotesqueâ.</p>
<p>And there is Paul McCartneyâs running joke that his grandfather â played by Wilfred Brambell from groundbreaking sitcom <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057785/">Steptoe and Son</a> (1962â74) â is âvery cleanâ.</p>
<p>Even the filmâs old-fashioned visual slapstick still holds up in 2024. Showing the film to this yearâs students, I didnât expect quite as much laughter when Ringoâs attempts to be chivalrous result in a fall-down-a-hole mishap.</p>
<p>In 2022, the <a href="https://www.criterion.com/">Criterion Collection</a> released a high-resolution restoration of the film, so today A Hard Dayâs Night can be seen in all its fresh, black-and-white, youthful vigour.</p>
<p>Happy 60th, A Hard Dayâs Night. And happy 84th, Ringo. Both still as lively and energetic as ever.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/228598/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alison-blair-223267"><em>Alison Blair</em></a><em>, Teaching Fellow in Music, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-otago-1304">University of Otago</a></em></p>
<p><em>Image </em><em>credits: THA/Shutterstock Editorial </em></p>
<p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/still-fab-after-60-years-how-the-beatles-a-hard-days-night-made-pop-cinema-history-228598">original article</a>.</em></p>
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