Director: Richard Lester
Country: United Kingdom
A Hard Day's Night shows us a day in a life of the rebellious group of youngsters from Liverpool during the touring years after returning from America, or in other words the years of "The Beatlemania". They have to do multiple things such as travelling by train, replying letters from fans, partying, attending press conferences full of journalists asking stupid questions and obviously getting answers full of sardonic sense of humor from the Fab Four, reharsing and playing on live TV and also running away from crazy fans and hiding themselves in customs and fake moustaches.
John Lennon pretending to snort coke and the whole group getting excited about an orgy are two spicy moments in the film, I'm pretty sure they did that shit though (or at least Lennon himself). We can see the funny side of the touring years, but in the end of this adventure we can see how was to be a Beatle, and despite all the fun, money and fame it became a nightmare and an overwhelming and painful activity for the Fab Four and paradoxically they ended up trying to be "normal" citizens and having a break like in Ringo's segment.
Richard Lester made a simple film with some flaws but an important piece of history because it's The Beatles, although it has some interesting technicalities such as the usage of handheld cameras, close-ups, scenes in time lapse, different camera angles (from above, below, behind, far away, etc) editing tricks and real footage, which combined delivered a great result, a magnificent documentary-fiction film.
The acting by The Beatles is not really important because they were charming and funny in front of the camera and basically they were acting like themselves, which is great because we can see a group of four guys playing music and smiling and this
Beatles' era was fantastic, they were young, beautiful, fresh and kind
of innocent, they were living a beautiful dream before things turned sour and densed starting with the infamous "We are more popular
than Jesus" quote by John Lennon, and the internal battles before and
during the production of "Rubber Soul". This is a must-see film for any person who loves The Beatles.
