'Beatles '64' Review: Two Weeks in America

David Tedeschi directed the documentary, which incorporates and contextualizes footage shot by Albert and David Maysles.

Now Streaming: Among Disney's three FYC * documentaries this year, Beatles '64 is the least conventional. 

(The other For Your Consideration, awards-seeking docs are The Beach Boys and Music By John Williams.)

Director David Tedeschi recontextualizes Albert and David Maysles' original documentary, What's Happening: The Beatles in the U.S.A., which premiered November 13, 1964, on CBS television, and was later revised, re-edited by Kathy Dougherty, Susan Froemke, and the Maysles, and released in 1991 as The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit. The original and the revised versions both focused on the two-week period in February 1964 when The Beatles invaded America, on the heels of their tremendous success in Europe. 

The Beatles official site credits the original documentary as the "the real-life inspiration for the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night." The official site cogently notes: "Albert and David Maysles were granted all-areas access the like of which is now unknown, filming The Beatles in the eye of their own hurricane as the band besotted America and lifted the nation from its gloom in the wake of President John Kennedy's assassination." 

The site continues with a very good sum-up of the film. Tedeschi's career as an editor began in the 1990s, and, most relevantly, included Martin Scorsese's George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011), as well as other Scorsese-helmed docs. Tedeschi began directing about 10 years ago, most recently the very fine Personality Crisis: One Night Only (2022), and he's very well-suited for a film that revolves around the original footage shot by Albert and David Maysles, while also freshening things up with a slew of interviews from people whose lives intersected with The Beatles, first in 1964 on that magical mystery tour, and then at later points in musical history. 

The perspective of time allows for greater reflection by the interviewees, including Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr as they visit a museum exhibition devoted to their early days. It's akin to an audio commentary on a home video release, only shot on video and skillfully woven into the fabric of the original documentary footage. 

What also occurs to me is that, even if you're not an incredible fan of The Beatles, it's quite hard to resist four young lads on a wild romp through America at a point in time just a couple of months after the JFK assassination. Frankly, I'd never given that much thought before, but living in Dallas, I still hear long-time residents talk about that horrible day and its lasting reverberations. It's wonderful to have something of a tonic in Beatles '64. [Disney Plus]