AKA: The Beatles: Parting Ways; Parting Ways: The Beatles
In this brief fifty-one minute unauthorized documentary best suited for television broadcast rather than purchase or even rental, filmmakers chronicle the lives of the Fab Four following the breakup or rather more fittingly dubbed “divorce” of The Beatles.
Although for the most part it fails to shed much new light on its subject, Parting Ways nonetheless makes for passable entertainment that's sure to appeal to die-hard fans.
A rather one-dimensional overview of post-Beatlemania existence for the men that's told in the order of their involvement with the band, the DVD from Infinity Entertainment Group presents their mini biographies from “the first Beatle” aka John Lennon all the way up through the last (Ringo Starr).
Admittedly it does come as a bit of a surprise that the disc delves into the usually ignored eighteen month separation of John Lennon and Yoko Ono that he spent with Yoko's assistant May Pang, with whom Yoko suggested that John take up in the early '70s.
However, one of the eerier focuses of the disc considers the effect of Lennon's death by assassination on the remaining Beatles. While the DVD reveals that Paul McCartney became especially weary of touring, Parting Ways delivers a startling blow by illustrating the impact it had on George Harrison who is painted as something of a near hermit for not leaving his estate much, only to find in a cruel twist of fate that he became the target of a home invasion by a mad stabber, whom he fortunately was able to outmaneuver.
Thankfully the disc doesn't spend the majority of its running time fixated on the macabre as it celebrates the individual musical achievements the four had following their split and the way that in some cases they ended up collaborating on other material.
Yet considering its incredibly short running time, it isn't able to go into great detail regarding their various professional accomplishments and winds up glossing over recent releases of The Beatles Rock Band game and the Cirque du Soleil show “Love.”
Retaining its small screen style look of a full frame aspect ratio and 2.0 sound, although the disc offers four bonus featurettes that center on everything from Stella McCartney's role in fashion to the men's spiritual exploration, overall it seems to blend right into the background of way too many superior Beatles retrospectives.
FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.
Since at first it was difficult to discern which one was in fact the DVD as it was inconspicuously included in the set of 3-discs that all resembled baseballs signed by Paul McCartney, I wasn't expecting all that much from the CD's concert disc. This being said, of course McCartney's name promises quality, innovation and showmanship, considering the length and evolution of his career with The Beatles, Wings, or alone. Still overall I feared it would most likely be a nice but brief selection of clips and performances similar to the ones contained in Andrea Bocelli's breathtaking album but breathlessly short DVD last year.
However, this epic November 17 release, which was also issued on vinyl and part of a 4-disc collection that boasts an extra DVD for McCartney's most ardent admirers, treats us to a full out, state-of-the-art concert with dozens of songs and hours of incredible footage. Surpassing some of the individually sold live concerts that have premiered on DVD and Blu-ray this year, Concord Music, Paul McCartney and Hear Music's Good Evening New York City is the closest thing to experiencing the genuine feel of a concert in your own home due to its phenomenal technical specifications.
And since the main focus is on the music, instantly the sound mixes are what grabs you both in the 5.1 and stereo track. Yet once you become acclimated to McCartney's continually playful and infectious delivery of songs he's performed thousands of times before, you're soon overwhelmed by the mixture of musical adrenaline and sheer joy apparent in the guitar pic precise visual presentation. Even before I read that fans in the crowd were given 75 Flipcams to achieve an unparalleled sense of “you are here” digital authenticity in tandem with the fifteen professionally manned high definition cameras during the trio of New York Evenings in July from which the footage was pulled, I could sense that groundbreaking techniques were at work.
And the mesmerizing experience is well worth it as the concert DVD contained in this set preserves the historic three-night event of McCartney's return to musically christen the new site of the landmark Shea Stadium, which was torn down, rebuilt “a few hundred yards away” and renamed Citi Field. The engagement from July 17-21 critically dubbed “the experience of a lifetime” is especially significant considering McCartney's Good Evening was staged both one year after joining Billy Joel's farewell to Shea Stadium in the last concert before its demolition and forty-four years after The Beatles played the venue and gave birth to stadium rock in 1965.
On August 15, 1965, The Beatles played a twelve song set filling out just thirty-four minutes for 55,600 screaming fans (that also included McCartney's future wife, Linda Eastman) who drowned out the sound of the band during their sold-out performance. And in the three Good Evenings in 2009, 109,397 people gathered in Citi Field to celebrate the lineup captured in this two hour and forty minute concert which consisted of thirty-three songs.
From beloved hits that span the course of his impressive career including rousing renditions of “Drive My Car,” “Band on the Run,” and “Live and Let Die,” and many others, McCartney switches instruments several times throughout. Effortlessly he moves from a ukulele that was given to him by George Harrison to the piano and several guitars including one enviable brightly colored electric model on which he wails Hendrix's “Foxy Lady." And at the same time, Paul McCartney proves that his vocal and instrumental musicality is still top-notch even after all these years.
With footage from longtime collaborator Paul Becher, McCartney thrills us as light beams out onto the audience like snow and video installations change from incredibly well-designed visuals to enhance the meaning of the music with a multimedia approach that mixes nicely with enhanced live closeups of the band at play. Therefore, McCartney's dazzling Evening concert DVD manages to engage us even more than the 2-CD set of the exact same performance since the event transcends just the audio and becomes a full-blown concert right in your living room via the third inconspicuous baseball DVD.
In order to be a real "rocknrolla," eventually you have to ask yourself if you want to actually “make it” or if you'd rather just perform your way on stage by eating fistfuls of chicken in between singing and cursing. Although I'm sure a few would choose the chicken, the rewards are far greater for those who are as passionate about music as the late and legendary Beatle, Mr. John Lennon whose anecdote from a French television interview is included in this unofficial documentary. And for those of you scratching your heads, the chicken reference Lennon cites in regard to the Beatles' decision to gravitate towards professionalism refers to the musical career the group had before and after signing on with Brian Epstein.
Yet despite the fact that the production quality of the DVD is exceedingly poor since it feels like it's an overlong paid program for itself complete with voice-over lead-ins for "faux" commercial breaks, die hard fans of the Fab Four will want to seek out some of its one-of-a-kind inclusions. However, it's nearly killed with padding including some of the worst Dick Clark inspired narration to have been written for someone other than Dick Clark or a Dick Clark related infomercial and odd choices for talking heads including Dancing With the Stars judge Len Goodman don't do much to change our mind about its validity.
On the plus side however, this chronicle of the group back when Pete Best was a member boasts the earliest footage ever recorded of the band on stage in Liverpool in 1962 as well as the only existing film of the guys on tour in Scotland. Unfortunately, it isn't enough to recommend the DVD which is edited into five parts with would-be commercial breaks that tease at what's to come, again adding to an infomercial feel.
While the same typical points are covered including speculation on why the group broke up and reiterating just how original and successful they were in their heyday, the presentation isn't successful as a whole as it moves from reconstructed footage (a la E! Channel) to candid authentic video. Still, aside from some of the rare and unseen clips, the one benefit served up in this documentary is by inviting some valuable early sources who usually aren't asked to speak to do so, which opens your eyes to other musical performers of the era who shared the stage with the guys (minus the chicken) including Sylvie Vartan.
Over the past summer, for the final selection in my movie discussion series I created and hosted at a local library, I chose Julie Taymor's woefully underrated Beatles inspired musical art film Across the Universe. Spending over a month digging through Beatles history and music along with reading everything I could on Taymor's movie to complete a multimedia graduate school project that I hosted on my website (which you can see here), in the end, all the research in the world didn't matter when it came to experiencing not just the film but all of those incredible Beatles songs with an audience.
The only film I've ever screened where there was a public demand to watch the final credits role to hear Bono's cover of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" with the psychedelic visuals of Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess, once it ended, the discussion could've gone on forever as we began analyzing not just the film itself but the '60s and what exactly a band like The Beatles meant and still does mean to the world.
Leaving a legacy of songs and lyrics that have trickled into pop culture, their music seems to be nearly automatic as we're able to instantly sing along, hum along or tap out the beat of any work when we experience it again, amazed by all of the various phases that the band went through. Yes, there was a devastation for the baby-boomer generation when the band broke up (and some fans began tuning out beforehand), yet-- behind the idea of the writing team of John Lennon and Paul McCartney as Mythic Rock Gods-- they were human beings first and foremost who grew and changed, nearly like a marriage in sometimes spending more time in each other's company than with their own families.
In the second installment of Composing the BEATLES Songbook which chronicles the band's final years of inner turmoil, differing styles and shifting priorities that exclusively focuses on Lennon and McCartney, we're given an analytical almost PhD level dissertation from music critics, biographers, friends and musicians who weave together the history of the band and dissect each piece of music as though it were part of a crime scene investigation. While it does begin to feel slightly exhaustive, clocking in at 112 minutes as sometimes I felt that a few of the commenters could've been edited out when they said something fairly similar to another interviewee, it's nonetheless a must-see for Beatles fans and those who own or cherish any of the latter albums and/or films from Revolver to Abbey Road to get a sense of just what went into the works some of us have come to take for granted.
As one interviewee keenly observes, The Beatles mainly consisted of "three different songwriters"--namely Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and then the combination of the two men together. And when the documentary begins, we catch up with the band post Rubber Soul in 1966, when "they were so clearly on top and so clearly the leaders," in an "early approach [that] was very much collaborative" as they strived to push "music forward." As Rolling Stone Magazine's Anthony DeCurtis notes, in the beginning of The Beatles, the music was simple and as Lennon and McCartney just strived to "make [songs] the best" they could and "hope others like them," he notes that admitteldy there wasn't a lot to fight about.
However, later on as the two evolved outside the band with McCartney becoming fascinated by theatre, film, literature, and the local art scenes (discovering Avant Garde culture and experimental work) and Lennon was mostly "stuck at home, taking drugs [and] watching TV," their real personalities emerged. A lover of rock 'n roll, Lennon wanted to make music that was rebellious, angst-filled and daring. Having, as one interviewee notes "a big chip on his shoulder," he would later begin distancing himself from the band upon meeting artist Yoko Ono and thus drawing inspiration from everyday items such as a poster ("Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite"), cereal boxes, LSD trips, and just experimenting with serving up words in no particular order a la Bob Dylan. Meanwhile, McCartney preferred to create classic pop "set pieces" or richly layered "character songs" that some critics likened to great short stories that to me seem to have been a major influence on Bily Joel's story-songs.
As the personalities began to clash, especially following the death of their beloved manager Brian Epstein, and the decision to no longer be a touring band (especially after Lennon's out-of-context infamous remark saying they were "bigger than Jesus"), McCartney tried to serve as the driving force behind the band, fighting to keep them together with all his might. Yet Lennon started slipping away, contributing less and less to the records he began publicly calling "McCartney's albums" such as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Revolver (which was inspired by The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and Frank Zappa's Freak Out).
While they were still able to come together to make some exquisite compositions, in this documentary, we're treated to an insider's view and intense dissection of some of the band's biggest hits and most artistic work such as "Tomorrow Never Knows." Additionally, the critics discuss McCartney's "Penny Lane" and Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever" (which was the B-side to "Lane" yet now is perhaps far more favored), "A Day in the Life" which they call the "best of both worlds [and that without both men] the song would be far less satisfying." In one of the band's most alternately popular yet bizarre offerings-- The White Album-- we're given terrifically revealing insight as John tried his hand at gorgeous McCartney styled ballads with "Julia" and Paul switched places, rocking harder than Lennon with "Helter Skelter."
And while fans have found it easy to lay blame on various people and circumstances over the year from drugs to Yoko Ono to egos as well as the changing of the times, one realizes that it's a combination of everything as-- despite our wish to freeze frame them into some singular point in time and say "this is what you should do and this is who you are"-- artistically and personally they grew and changed and moving on. Yet in doing so, thankfully they've left us with-- as we discussed in my film group this summer-- an amazing array of compositions that ultimately helped create the soundtrack of the twentieth century. I'll leave the speculation and finger pointing to others. For in honor of Thanksgiving and simply my love for the joy and inspiration their music brings, I'd rather just celebrate their musical legacy, since in the end, when it comes to The Beatles, "all you need is love."
During the phenomenally successful forty-six years of the James Bond franchise which has released twenty-two movies since our first introduction to the British Spy in 1962's Dr. No, a wide variety of musicians have all contributed to the Bond landscape. As the gadgets grew more high-tech and the clothing changed with the times, so did the musical genres via an increasingly diverse group of artists as the old fashioned swinging sounds of the legendary Shirley Bassey (who performed three tracks for the series) were replaced by Paul McCartney & Wings' stadium-rock approach, the easy listening ballads by Sheena Easton and Carly Simon, 80's smashes by A-Ha and Duran Duran, Madonna's techno driven inclusion and many others.
While some were far more successful than the rest, every time a new Bond title track was released to be played over the ridiculously expensive, masculine Playboy style credits, fans couldn't wait to check it out. Now, today with this wonderful collection of twenty-four solid tracks from the series (including one previously unreleased "James Bond Theme" by John Arnold) available on CD, CD/DVD and digitally, it's the ideal way to build up anticipation for the next film--Quantum of Solace-- arriving in theatres on November 14. Additionally, it offers a great chance as well to look back on the many ways in which the series has evolved.
However, this time you get the unique chance to do so primarily with your ears instead of the immediate differences you notice visually with your eyes (when comparing Goldfinger with Goldeneye, for example) as the Capitol Records/EMI album opens with the original, instantly recognizable "James Bond Theme" by the John Barry Orchestra.
One of those awesome and unforgettable themes that one can place within seconds such as the opening notes of Jaws, The Godfather, Pink Panther, Star Wars, Psycho, and Indiana Jones-- the theme not only begins the album but sets the mood for the 60's portion of the disc. From Matt Monro's lush and underrated "From Russia With Love," we move right into the show-stopper, Ms. Shirley Bassey's first Bond track and arguably her greatest-- "Goldfinger"-- which would later be followed by her performances of "Diamonds Are Forever" and "Moonraker."
While the rest of the 60's and early 70's tunes are fun but slightly forgettable including Tom Jones's "Thunderball," Nancy Sinatra's "You Only Live Twice," the John Barry Orchestra's second piece "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," the otherwise magnificent Louis Armstrong's "We Have All The Time In The World" doesn't quite fit the Bond oeuvre. Similar to the way that the decades-later Madonna's track "Die Another Day" seems out of place as well, we realize that Armstrong's and Madonna's offerings would've been better off on the artists' own albums instead.
However, Paul McCartney and Wings pick things up considerably with "Live & Let Die" that still sounds extraordinary by today's standards. And after that song, the success of the pieces are kind of off and on as the tunes begin to reflect more of what was happening musically at the time-- sometimes helping to keep James Bond "in fashion" and other times calling to much attention to the works themselves as opposed to the man we're all paying to see.
For my money, Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" for the film The Spy Who Loved Me is quite possibly the best Bond song ever created and certainly the best one since Bassey's sultry "Goldfinger" matched her voice to the sounds of her brass band. While Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only" has power-ballad written all over it, it's a lovely feminine number that managed to stand out in the 80's when the series would score greater hits on the Billboard Charts with Duran Duran's "A View To A Kill" and a-ha's "The Living Daylights."
And while the 90's found some intriguing numbers and worthwhile contributions by Tina Turner (who along with Pierce Brosnan helped resurrect the dwindling popularity of the franchise following Timothy Dalton's films in Goldeneye), perhaps the most underrated song on the album is the gorgeous and sweeping epic "The World is Not Enough" performed by Garbage or more appropriately, another Shirley who managed to recall the elegance and orchestral movements of the big sounds of the earliest Bond songs.
Following Madonna's skippable "Die Another Day" which worked about as well as that particular film, Chris Cornell provided a healthy dose of adrenaline straight into the heart of Bond with his rockin' and masculine "You Know My Name." One of the few songs on the album not to be titled after the film it's written for, "Name" makes perfect sense for its particular soundtrack-- specifically Casino Royale-- chronologically the first James Bond story as he earns 00 status and a film that stood head and shoulders among the rest, introducing us to our newest Bond, Mr. Daniel Craig.
A solid album filled with some songs you may not recognize by name and artist alone but Bond devotees will be surprised to discover how they come flooding back once you pop the album into your player. While I was kindly sent the CD for review, the CD/DVD combo provides a documentary on the Bond legacy and also numerous video performances you can stream below for your listening and viewing pleasure.
The Best Of Bond… James Bond (CD, CD/DVD, Digital Album) 1. “James Bond Theme” - John Barry Orchestra 2. “From Russia With Love” - Matt Monro 3. “Goldfinger” - Shirley Bassey 4. “Thunderball” - Tom Jones 5. “You Only Live Twice” – Nancy Sinatra 6. “On Her Majesty's Secret Service” - John Barry Orchestra 7. “We Have All The Time In The World” - Louis Armstrong 8. “Diamonds Are Forever” - Shirley Bassey 9. “Live & Let Die” - Paul McCartney and Wings 10. “Man With The Golden Gun” – Lulu 11. “Nobody Does It Better” - Carly Simon 12. “Moonraker” - Shirley Bassey 13. “For Your Eyes Only” - Sheena Easton 14. “All Time High” - Rita Coolidge 15. “A View To A Kill” - Duran Duran 16. “The Living Daylights” - A-Ha 17. “Licence To Kill” - Gladys Knight 18. “GoldenEye” - Tina Turner 19. “Tomorrow Never Dies” - Sheryl Crow 20. “Surrender” - kd lang 21. “The World Is Not Enough” – Garbage 22. “Die Another Day” – Madonna 23. “You Know My Name” – Chris Cornell Bonus Track 24. “James Bond Theme” - John Arnold (previously unreleased)
DVD 1. “A View To A Kill” - Duran Duran (music video) 2. “For Your Eyes Only” - Sheena Easton (music video) 3. “GoldenEye” - Tina Turner (music video) 4. “The Living Daylights” - A-Ha (music video) 5. “All Time High” - Rita Coolidge (music video) 6. “Goldfinger” – Shirley Bassey (Live at Royal Albert Hall, 1974) 7. Documentary: “The Music Of James Bond”
Check Out the Newest Bond Song By Alicia Keys & Jack White
The World of James Bond: An Amazon Product Slideshow (Click the Item to Explore)
Walking Movie Encyclopedia at Film Intuition; 3-Time National Award Winning Scribe; Film Reviewer; "Watch With Jen" Podcast Host; Screenwriter; Movie Discussion Host; BA in Film Studies & Communication.
