295: Beatles '64 with David Tedeschi and Margaret Bodde

Summary

Podcast Summary: Episode 295 – "Beatles '64 with David Tedeschi and Margaret Boddy"

Introduction

In episode 295 of Something About the Beatles, host Robert Rodriguez engages in an insightful conversation with filmmakers David Tedeschi and Margaret Boddy, alongside renowned director Martin Scorsese. The trio delves deep into the creation and significance of the documentary Beatles '64, exploring its unique approach to capturing The Beatles' inaugural visit to the United States.

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1. Overview of Beatles '64

Rodriguez begins by expressing his appreciation for the Beatles '64 documentary, highlighting its complementary nature to previous works about the band. He notes, “Having seen it now, the right mindset is to view it as another version, another angle on the Beatles' story” (03:12). This sets the stage for a discussion on how the film offers a fresh perspective despite covering familiar ground.

2. Filmmakers' Background and Collaboration

The conversation shifts to the collaborative history between Scorsese, Tedeschi, and Boddy. Tedeschi shares, “There’s a shorthand in communicating with each other... a reverence for beautiful archival moments and film from the past” (08:19). Scorsese adds his pragmatic approach, stating, “There are 17 new minutes of footage... it was a true document of who the Beatles were as a live band in 1964” (09:23). Their combined expertise ensures a meticulous and passionate portrayal of The Beatles' impact.

3. Audience and Reception

Discussing the intended audience, Scorsese remarks, “It’s a little twofold. It’s Beatles. The audience will find it. But we’re always honed in on young people” (10:36). Tedeschi emphasizes the universal appeal, mentioning Disney Plus's involvement aims to bring together different generations to experience the film. This inclusive approach ensures that both long-time fans and new audiences can appreciate the documentary.

4. Cultural and Historical Context

A significant portion of the conversation delves into the cultural milieu of 1964 America. Scorsese reflects on the resistance The Beatles faced, noting, “I hadn’t remembered the degree to which it was an establishment that was against the Beatles and did everything they could to make the Beatles fail” (25:57). Tedeschi adds, “The British Embassy story was really shocking... they were treated so badly at their own national embassy” (27:26). These insights shed light on the societal tensions and the polarizing reception The Beatles encountered upon their arrival.

5. Musical Influence and Integration

The filmmakers discuss The Beatles' musical legacy and their integration of black American music influences. Scorsese highlights an interview with Smokey Robinson, stating, “They were the first white artist of their magnitude to say that they like black music and they listen to black music and they love Motown” (40:48). This acknowledgment underscores the profound cross-cultural exchanges that shaped The Beatles' sound and contributed to their universal appeal.

6. Technical Aspects and Restoration

Tedeschi explains the technical prowess behind Beatles '64, particularly the restoration work done by Peter Jackson’s company, Park Road Productions. He mentions, “Austin Short unearthed a 16 millimeter print... it was so degraded” and how restoration experts made it “tolerable” (23:01). Scorsese praises the quality, remarking, “It looks like it was filmed yesterday” (18:25). This meticulous restoration ensures that archival footage is presented with clarity and vibrancy, enhancing the documentary's authenticity.

7. Personal Anecdotes and Fandom

Rodriguez shares personal reflections on The Beatles' enduring legacy, appreciating the filmmakers' focus on fan perspectives. He observes, “You hear it in their voices talking about... just a complete embrace of it because it’s so good” (44:36). Tedeschi recounts their attempts to capture candid moments, humorously narrating their escapades in trying to "sneak into the hotel" (63:19), which adds a relatable and humanizing layer to the discussion.

8. Future Projects and Aspirations

Towards the end of the episode, the trio speculates on future endeavors. Scorsese hints at potential projects driven by visceral passion rather than specific plans, stating, “The next project might be surprising. You just never know where or what” (55:45). Tedeschi expresses a desire to explore Figure like Stevie Wonder, emphasizing the importance of documenting influential yet underrepresented artists (57:44). This openness to spontaneous creativity underscores their commitment to preserving and celebrating musical legacies.

9. Musical Analysis and Insights

Boddy provides a technical analysis of specific Beatles songs featured in the documentary. She discusses the innovative use of time signatures in “She Said, She Said,” explaining, “It suddenly... leaves out a beat so that an ordinary four beat measure becomes a three beat measure” (48:10). This examination highlights The Beatles' experimental approach to music, which set them apart from their contemporaries and solidified their status as pioneers in the music industry.

10. Closing Reflections

Rodriguez concludes the episode by reflecting on the documentary's impact and the collaborative spirit of the filmmakers. He appreciates the "collage effect of filmmaking," stating, “It captures the spirit energy of life more than just strictly going down a checklist” (72:04). The discussion underscores the documentary's success in portraying The Beatles' vibrant energy and cultural significance, making it a must-watch for fans and historians alike.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• David Tedeschi (08:19): “There’s a reverence for beautiful archival moments and film from the past.”

• Robert Rodriguez (03:12): “Having seen it now, the right mindset is to view it as another version, another angle on the Beatles' story.”

• Martin Scorsese (25:57): “It was an establishment that was against the Beatles and did everything they could to make the Beatles fail.”

• Margaret Boddy (48:10): ““That good 5% is so exciting and vital and may I significant that it claims the attention of every thinking person.”

• Martin Scorsese (40:48): “They were the first white artist of their magnitude to say that they like black music and they listen to black music and they love Motown.”

• David Tedeschi (57:44): “Stevie Wonder would be on my list. What about you, David?”

• Robert Rodriguez (72:04): “I really recognized the modern sensibility of bringing in other perspectives and voices in this telling.”

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Conclusion

Episode 295 of Something About the Beatles offers an in-depth exploration of Beatles '64 through the lenses of David Tedeschi, Margaret Boddy, and Martin Scorsese. The conversation masterfully intertwines personal anecdotes, technical insights, and cultural analysis, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of The Beatles' seminal 1964 US visit and its enduring legacy. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to The Beatles' story, this episode enriches your appreciation of their monumental impact on music and culture.

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Timestamp Reference

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Transcript

[David Tedeschi]

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[Robert Rodriguez]

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[Margaret Boddy]

American teenagers, well 19 and 20 year olds anyway, once helped repulse the British at Bunker Hill. But there's no indication that our teenagers are going to do it again. The British Invasion this time goes by the code name Beetle Mania. D Day has been common knowledge for months, and this was the day the invasion took place at New York's Kennedy International Airport.

[Martin Scorsese]

Everybody.

[Margaret Boddy]

Look. Can we please act? Quiet. Quiet, please. Let the feasting begin. Unless you keep quiet, we can't even have a present. Will you please shut up? Shut up. Listen, I got a question here.

[Martin Scorsese]

Very quickly, did you understand?

[Margaret Boddy]

You want to get a haircut at all? No, no, no. I had one yesterday. That's. What do you think of Beet over there? Great. Especially his poems. I keep touching that day.

[Martin Scorsese]

I'm sick of that one.

[Margaret Boddy]

What do you think your music does for these people? Well, pleases them, I think. Well, they must do because they're buying it. Why does it excite them so much? We don't know really. If we knew, we'd form another group and be managers. That's the way it is. Friday, February 7, 1964.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Hello and welcome to episode 295 of Something about the Beatles Podcast. First off, I want to thank everyone who has written to satb2010satb2010.com to get signed up for the newsletter. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and those who are now getting the newsletters know why. It's a good reason to get those newsletters. It's definitely something that is worth your while. I think we can all agree. So thank you for that and everybody who hasn't so far consider it. I think you will be glad you did. Now, we had our first drawing day after Thanksgiving here in the States for the Capitol sets. Got four winners. I will announce that stuff publicly as far as names go once I get confirmation this stuff is shipped and all that stuff. So I don't want to get too much ahead of ourselves now. But here we are in this week of much to enjoy in Beetle World with the release of the Beatles 64 doc. Now, I will say that I got to see it in advance of my conversation with David Tedeschi and Margaret Boddy and I quite enjoyed it. All right, this is somebody who has seen the previous iterations of the Maisels Brothers film. I was very happy that it was not just a straightforward chronological telling of the first US visit, which we already got 30 years ago. I actually, I don't keep track of this stuff. It's like once I buy it, I consider I've got it and I don't think too much about is it still available? I would suspect it's not available for release right now. It's certainly not a Blu Ray edition. Maybe it's been reissued at some point. I don't really know. I don't keep track of that stuff. But it is out there. I think even going into this Beatles 64 discussion, I kind of in advance had the thought that like let it be and get back. It was meant to complement rather than replace. So I think that is probably, having seen it now, the right mindset to have. Okay, but part of me was surprised and part of me was not surprised at all to see some of the just over the top negativity expressed toward it in social media. Which is one more reason to avoid social media and just have a direct pipeline like a newsletter. But you are allowed to be disappointed. You're allowed to have expectations going into something like this. That's fine. You're allowed to not like it. I would suggest perhaps calibrating expectations in advance to be real about what you're getting. Knowing there's a finite amount of Beetle film and audio in the world. There are things we know to exist that are lost. There are things that get found and get circulated. And certainly in the making of this, I'm not sure how many people know this, but there was previously unseen Maisel's Brothers films worked into it as well as other things they dug up. But you'll hear that straight from them in our conversation. So I think that taken in the proper spirit of, yeah, you've seen this before, but here's another version, here's another angle on it. And also keeping in mind who this might be intended for, because seemingly the people true to expectations making the most negative noise are the biggest of the hardcores. But if you can relax a bit and enjoy it for what it is, I think you will find it indeed enjoyable. And something that, as we've said on the show many times before, when something comes out, you can quibble with it if you like, but in the end, the Beatles have always had that capacity for lifting us out of dark times and raising our spirits and filling the world with this positive energy that we can certainly use more of. And it doesn't matter. It's more than 50 years past their breakup. The power of them on film and in song is still there. It still packs as big a punch as it ever did. And we should be thankful for the minor miracles our lives give us. So with that spirit. So here's a conversation, I will tell you that it was not under the normal, sort of sappy circumstances, put it one way. So we got an hour and made the most of it as best we could. But if you already watched the film, maybe you want to hear what they have to say about it. If you haven't watched the film yet, or if you've read reviews of it, still check out what they have to say about it, because maybe that's a good way of seeing it through the maker's eyes and figure out how close they came to fulfilling what had been their intent in the first place. After the conversation, I'll give you a little bit of my take on it. Not that it's worth anything, but I never want to be in the business of telling people what their opinion should be. But I can offer, for what it's worth, what I got out of it. Here we go.

[Martin Scorsese]

It's the bloody Beatles Shutter.

[Robert Rodriguez]

You guys have worked together on a number of music films. The Dylan stuff, no Direction Home and Rolling Thunder Review, and the previous excursion to Beetle Land with Living in the Material World. Did any of this previous history with music films inform the making of this?

[David Tedeschi]

I've worked with David and Marty on many music documentaries spanning back 20 years, starting with the Blues series on PBS, a series about the blues. And that's when we started working with David on editing Marty's film for that series. But, you know, that's just a long winded way of saying that, you know, there's a shorthand in communicating with each other. We all also share similar sensibility about the value of these films and how. And how they can be put together and how you can. I think we. We all have a reverence for beautiful archival moments and film from the past. So, you know, when you start looking at something like the beautiful 16 millimeter black and white footage that was shot by Albert and David Maisels, you're just so inspired and you're just so blown away by the fact that they had that opportunity to capture that moment on film so beautifully.

[Martin Scorsese]

Yeah, I would put it slightly different way, a more. In a way, from my point of view, a more practical way. I got a call from Apple to ask if I'd be interested in working on something and what I would do with this footage. What were my thoughts? And the first call I made afterwards was to Margaret, who. Because I know that Margaret is capable of making things real. Like, that's in a way what a producer does. And I would also say that Bob Dylan says in no Direction Home, I was a musical expeditionary. And I think one of the reasons Scorsese really related to that is he's a cinematic expeditionary. You know, he eats up film and then he. It comes out of him in a different form in this beautiful way. And I think both Margaret and I really respond to that. We want to work on something that's new and challenging and emotional. And I hope this felt like it would be an opportunity to do something interesting.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Who do you see as the audience for this? Did you have one in mind or just it's Beatles. The audience will find it.

[Martin Scorsese]

It's a little twofold. I mean, it's Beatles. The audience will find it. But we're always honed in on young people.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Okay.

[Martin Scorsese]

You know, and I think Apple Corps also is interested in appealing to a young audience. And I didn't realize until we were done with the film that it is a film about youth. Of these four very young guys, you have this 20 year old torture, 23 and others are somewhere in between. And you have these 15, 16 year old boys and girls, you know, and they're so young and they're frozen in time because that's the moment that was captured by this footage. But there's a real sense of how both the fans and the band went on to have a real impact, even though they're so young and even though they're so different from the generation that came before it.

[David Tedeschi]

We're also, we're so thrilled that Disney plus is gonna drop this the day after Thanksgiving. Because the dream, of course, is to have different generations gather and experience the film together. And I think, you know, that's it's, it's a wonderful thing when your film doesn't have a specific age. It would find it appealing because the Beatles have that kind of rare quality of being discovered and rediscovered each generation. So, yeah, we're looking forward to that. We're looking forward to hearing stories about people watching it together with their families.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, undoubtedly.

[Margaret Boddy]

What do you like about the Beatles?

[Robert Rodriguez]

The way you put it together is surprising in a way that I think the fans wouldn't necessarily expect. Like a chronological, linear telling. It's much more impressionistic with the cutting back and forth between the Beatles in the hotel room and the fans and the action going on outside that, as well as the contextual inserts, tons of context in here. You've got a series of different talking heads throughout, giving the sort of backstory to what was going on at the time. I don't want to give away too much to anybody who hasn't seen it yet, but it was a refreshing approach to telling what is a familiar story. And one of the things I wanted to ask you about. Well, it's kind of a two part question with this connection with Apple and them having this film that they owned and they're running it by you. Can you make something of this and what would it be? Was there any sort of implicit approval required for what you ultimately included? And like Peter Jackson, you're coming into this with inherited footage that you have to then build out with whatever additions that you make. Did the footage in hand influence the direction you wanted to go or did you already have a vision in mind to use the footage a certain way?

[Martin Scorsese]

It's hard to say because I'm a Beatles fan, right. And I know what's out there. And I have my opinions based in part by the footage I've seen. I will say that I knew Al Maisel's. I have tremendous respect, admiration for the Maisel brothers and their films, but I thought that in the case of their projects, like what's happening, they weren't so interested in the music. They were interested in the Beatles as a phenomena and the Beatles themselves as people. But the music, and I'm very interested in the music. And then the other side of it is they didn't really focus on the fans. But even Albert, later in life, he said, well, you know what, they were pretty interesting. You know, maybe there was a story there that we could have incorporated more of. And of Course the fans are, you know, we. The footage from 1964 of the fans is so imbued with this special energy that to my eye it was extraordinary. Very funny and very. It Transported me to 1964.

[Robert Rodriguez]

I did think that they served as sort of the fifth member alongside John, Paul, George and Ringo as a main character. And the way you guys put this together and got far more interaction with the fans and their insights, what they thought was happening, that was huge because in Beatles scholarship right now, that is a big part that is being freshly mined, that part of the story, the fandom. And there's been generations of mostly male historians writing about the Beatles history and writing off the screaming girls as if it was trivial and unimportant and not this profound life changing experience that happened to them young and carried on all through their lives. And you guys presented that in this film, which I thought was just a wonderful touch. I don't know if that was something that you'd been thinking along some of the lines, but that's certainly where the historiography currently is going with Beatles as big Beatle fan. I know you were. I've read other interviews with you, Margaret. I'm assuming you at least had a fandom for the Beatles to some extent. I'm presuming you guys saw, if not the 1964 on TV with Carol Burnett version, but certainly the 1990s.

[Martin Scorsese]

How did you see the Carol Burnett version?

[Robert Rodriguez]

Have I seen it? I have not.

[Martin Scorsese]

Oh, you haven't?

[Robert Rodriguez]

No, no. I just know it exists. I would love to.

[David Tedeschi]

As part of our. Yeah, we had a great researcher on this project, Austin Short, who we worked with on two other projects, the Rolling Thunder Review, Bob Dylan, Rolling Thunder Tour documentary we did in 2019, and personality crisis, the film that we made about that David and Marty co directed about David Johansson.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yes.

[David Tedeschi]

Austin unearthed a 16 millimeter print of that CBS television special and we had it transferred. And so we have seen it. And it's so funny. It's such a funny kind of early 60s idea. Right. Of like we can't even understand what's happening. If you're just watching something, you have to have someone explain it or put it into some kind of framework. But yeah, you were asking about other iterations.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, well, to get back to what you're talking about and for the listeners that might not know what we're talking about, when that Maisels Brothers footage was first aired in the States, it was November of 64. It was, I think, a series of Sunday night specials. And for that Beatle installment, which I believe runs about 45 minutes long. Carol Burnett was the host of it. I'm glad she's still around today and people know her in many different other contexts. But I thought that was an interesting thing, an interesting choice, but I'm glad you guys got to see it. I'm glad it got dug up because in my heart of hearts, I'm thinking that would make a fabulous bonus thing to the blu Ray of Beatle 64 is putting that out there. But to circle back to my original question, you guys, I'm assuming, had seen the 1991 presentation of this footage as the first US visit. And for people listening to this, they're thinking, oh, that's stuff we saw 30 years ago. This is a very different film. And I was wondering, having seen that, having experienced that, did that also sort of inform the direction we were going to take with this? Well, we want to do this and we don't want to do that. Or did you see that as like we're going to build out from that with even more footage that wasn't maybe available or used prior to.

[Martin Scorsese]

I think we'd looked at the. The footage that I got had been restored by Peter Jackson's company, Park Road, and it looks like it was filmed yesterday. I mean, it's black and white and it's. It's not a widescreen format, but it's so beautifully restored that it literally looks like it was filmed yesterday. So I treated it like any other kind of project that these are. This is new footage and no one's ever seen any of it before. And what's interesting about the footage, you know, you do dailies. I, interestingly enough, I saw Charlotte swear and speak once when I was very young and I already knew I wanted to be an editor. And one of the things she said is when you look at the footage for the first time, you have to guard your reaction, rather guard that memory, so that when you get used to the footage, you still remember what an impact it had on you the very first time you saw it, which I thought was really, really interesting. I mean, of course, she's the great, great editor of many things, but many of the Maisel's things in particular, we looked afterwards to see how much had been in first US visit and how much it had been. What's happening. There's 17 new minutes of footage that I've never seen before from what's happening from those dailies. And that's 17 minutes is just of the Maisel's footage. And as I Said the measles weren't that interested in the music, at least in this context. So said the Washington Coliseum, which has been seen before. It's been restored so well. And Peter Jackson's company, Wingnut, demixed the audio and Giles Martin remixed it. It's never been seen like this. Like, it's a true document of who the Beatles were as a live band in 1964 playing, say, Long Tall Sally. And it was. It's just. It's raucous rock and roll. So I would say there's. There's 17 minutes of new footage. There's this musical stuff that Giles Martin and Wingnut have brought back to life. And then we have some stuff from collectors and from archives that have been buried.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yes. The Miami local news footage, for instance.

[Martin Scorsese]

The Miami local news footage, absolutely.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah. That was amazing. I'm glad that you guys dug so deep on that. And that leads me to another question I had when I was watching it, is you guys cover the Carnegie hall concert that they did. And to people that are geeks like myself that have studied this stuff for years, you see that in fact, you concluded in the film, there's that shot of the Beatles on stage, and they've actually got audience members sitting on the stage just behind them, almost like in the round, like the D.C. show. And if you look at the audience members, there at least one person you can distinctly see with a film camera shooting the Beatles from behind.

[David Tedeschi]

That haunts us.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yes. Okay. I was wondering about that.

[David Tedeschi]

We did try to track down people who were there, including, you know, we tried to ID a lot of those people. We did ID some of them. And, you know, we did find someone who lives in New York City who has she took. She was there and she was in. She wasn't on stage with them. She was in the, you know, some of the front rows of Carnegie hall. And she took Polaroids of the band that had never been seen before. One of the photos that she took is in the film. But, yeah, we really wished that there.

[Martin Scorsese]

Was actual footage and, you know, an exhaustive process. We did find someone who filmed and the exposure was wrong. Back in 1964, she never got anything she was filming, but they actually capture anything on film.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Oh, geez. Okay. Well, it leads to another one of my questions was, in going through everything that you had access to, were there things that you wanted to get your hands on that you knew to exist? Well, obviously this would be one. Or that you did and wasn't of sufficient enough quality to use?

[Martin Scorsese]

Well, that was the only One that wasn't sufficiently enough quality to use.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Okay.

[Martin Scorsese]

It wasn't any quality at all. No. I think that if we knew something existed and we were able to find it, for the most part, we used it. Am I forgetting something, Margaret? Is there some pearl?

[David Tedeschi]

And we also had the benefit of some of the archival material that we found that was the only thing available. Like, for example, there's footage of Paul on the train that looks like it's shot in 1880. It's very degraded. And a reporter says something about how does this impact Western culture or something like that. It's a very high minded question. And his answer is so great. I mean, his reaction is so great. So we knew we wanted to include that, but it was so degraded. And we had the advantage of these restoration experts at Park Road Productions, Peter Jackson's company, and they were able to make it tolerable. It's not great. It still looks very degraded, but it at least can kind of integrate with the rest of the footage fairly well.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Well, that's pretty miraculous. Just think how far we've come. And God bless Peter Jackson for opening this whole world to things that were written off all these decades. And I know with your. The project that you're on the board on the. I can't remember what it's called now. The Film something.

[David Tedeschi]

The Film Foundation.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Film foundation, yes.

[David Tedeschi]

Yeah, it's Marty's nonprofit that restores feature films, for the most part, documentaries, all kinds of film material at the archives. And he started that in 1990. And I really think that his work in documentary on these documentary productions really is kind of the other side of the coin of his preservation efforts, because he's not just dealing with archival footage and working with archival footage to tell a story, but he's also. It's an act of cultural preservation. He's so excited about these subjects and he wants to make them new and fresh for new audiences.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Well, what a fabulous legacy. And it's geeks in the best possible sense. That was the sense when we talked to Peter Jackson. Hey, he's a geek like us. You know, it's like you do this stuff out of passion and love for what you're doing, and it's just a gift to the world. So God bless him for that. That's fabulous. One of the things I wanted to ask was what kind of things surprised you in diving into this along the way that maybe even as Beetle fans, you weren't aware of or. That was a pleasant thing to uncover for me.

[Martin Scorsese]

The obvious answer. It's not A pleasant thing to uncover. I had known about it, I was aware of it, but I hadn't really remembered the degree to which it was an establishment that was against the Beatles and that did everything they could to make the Beatles fail. You know, so you have. Within the press and within, you know. Capitol Records waited a year to release their first album. Yes, some of the music was released through VJ or different outlets, but Capital Records didn't believe that they could be successful. We think of almost as Beetle Mania and the Beatles success is being preordained. But when they're. They're on that airplane coming to New York, they really. They have no idea what awaits them, you know, and they. It's in the realm of possibility that nobody's going to be at that airport.

[Margaret Boddy]

Have you ever been to America before? I have, yeah. Just for a holiday. Yeah. And it was very nice. Did you tell them Hope until this time? How long are you going to be in America? 10 days. Well, our manager's going for 12, actually. Anything you specially want to see over there, if you've got any free time, you know, just. I suppose we'll have a bash of Statue of Liberty and all them and the Empire States and all.

[Martin Scorsese]

And you read the vitriol Eric Severide comparing Beetlemania to the German easels. That surprised me.

[Robert Rodriguez]

These are hard guys. I'm glad you included that Newsweek piece in there. We actually used that in a recent show. It is like top of the list of things that did not age well.

[David Tedeschi]

The other thing, just to build on what David saying is, for me personally, the. The British Embassy story was really shocking and really surprising in, again, a very negative way. John's story about someone just coming over and cutting off a piece of Ringo's hair. There's a shot of a guy, like, putting his hand into a pocket of Paul's jacket from over his shoulder. It's like they were just being mauled. And you know, that they were treated so badly at their own national embassy that we're honoring them. You have those people kind of, you know, dismissively just saying, we're not proud. We have to take no pride in this band. And it's just kind of like, wow, they did, you know, they really, you know, on short order, they did prove themselves, but they were still, you know, kind of definitely outsiders from those institutions.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Right. Which speaks to David's point about the negativity from the adult establishment world. I was so glad that you guys put that in there because, number one, I hadn't seen any of the embassy footage before, I don't think I'd seen that. At least I don't remember it. But the story is vividly ingrained in the memory of anybody who's read Lenin remembers. And that's where you guys got the quote from where he's talking to Jan Wen about those bloody animals. And I swore at them. We stormed out. I'm glad that you guys put that in there. I literally, to the person I was watching the screener with said this is where Ringo got his hair cut. And then there it was. So I don't know how many people know that story, but you guys have come the closest to bringing that to life of anybody I'd ever seen. That was just wonderful. I really like the. The sort of non obvious inclusion of the Marshall McLuhan stuff in there.

[Martin Scorsese]

Well, it just struck us, for instance, all the shots of the transistor radios, you know, and then of course, Sullivan is television. And there had never been a success on television like the Beatles. And television was a pretty. As a mass medium, it was pretty new. It was pretty new. You know, the first I hear about television really as having that kind of impact is the Nixon Kennedy debates in 60. So Marshall McLuhan seemed like a logical choice in order to contextualize things. And of course Marshall McLuhan later on interviewed John.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Right.

[Martin Scorsese]

So it felt like the fabric of the film.

[Margaret Boddy]

The dominant fact of any art form is the medium being employed. So this is a commonplace among artists for this past 60, 70 years. And I picked it up there. It doesn't lose its relevance or its meaning when transferred to popular media. It all it means, Jim, is this, that whether it's an electric light or radio or telephone or tv, each of these media creates a new environment. It creates a new situation for human association and human perception. Any medium at all creates a new pattern, a new atmosphere, a new environment of human perception which works upon the whole man, it works upon the whole society. That is the effect of the medium has that total pervasive effect. That is the message that social change that is brought about. The content of the medium is never the message because the content is always the old medium.

[Robert Rodriguez]

I had known about that crossing paths, but I'd never seen it before. So that was great. Making the point of JFK being the first television president. I don't know. It's been said with everything going on perfect for the Beatles it was like the one thing they couldn't control was timing. And that they arrive as you guys make the point on the heels of a Nation in mourning, that they're this breath of fresh air that gives the media something to latch onto and feel good about, something for the first time a couple months. But there was something else about what they projected. There's definitely the aspects of friendship between them that inspires certainly everybody watching that, all the young, impressionable kids that they're having so much fun with their buddies, with their mates. What could we do? We'd start bands or start fan clubs. Whatever they did, it was very much on display in what you guys put together. And I thought that was another good way that when you're not showing the music, you show them hanging out together. Just in the opening minutes, hearing a spontaneous, unaffected John Lennon laugh. That was a wonderful moment in the.

[David Tedeschi]

Hotel and him and George on the train when George instigates him to kind of just play around and, you know, improv for the cameras. Yeah, there's real genuine camaraderie and affection that's revealed by the intimate moments in the film.

[Margaret Boddy]

Hey, every question, back to answer, back to front. Can you sing? Answer.

[Robert Rodriguez]

We need money first.

[Margaret Boddy]

Who said that?

[Martin Scorsese]

Nobody.

[Margaret Boddy]

What do you have that nobody else has? Answer. Press agents. I haven't quite got it right. How about you? Her answer.

[Robert Rodriguez]

We're really bald. Funny. Absolutely. And, you know, it's unguarded, not performing for the camera stuff because it seems like they forget the cameras. Although it was funny when they're reacting to the woman with the microphone in the hotel room right away.

[David Tedeschi]

That's one of the Maisel's scenes. It has never been seen before.

[Robert Rodriguez]

I'm glad that that was put in the trailer. That defy convention bit from Paul. Wonderful.

[David Tedeschi]

It's an apt summary of, you know, their ethos.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Exactly. It's perfect. It's so perfect that that one has aged well, given every film is subject to budget and perhaps outside forces and time constraints. Certainly if you guys had had a bigger blank check to work on this, how different would it have been? Is there more stuff you would have wanted to do and develop and uncover than you were able to within this? Or did you pretty much nail everything you set out to?

[Martin Scorsese]

Well, it's funny. Money and time don't necessarily mean a better film. We had 12 months, which is a very short schedule for us. 12 months of editing. But we. We were talking about it last night that I had initially said to Margaret, let's do the interviews of the fans at the Plaza Hotel, and let's do something. Let's do. Let's go to the cbs. You know, it's now called the Ed Sullivan Theater to do Danny Bennett and people who had a, you know, Sullivan had a real impact on them. And, you know, of course, it was tremendously expensive. And we came up with the idea of the photograph putting, say, Vicki Bernacosta at the Plaza through a photograph because there's a rich. There's so many wonderful. They're so well documented. The Beatles are so well documented in that moment. And honestly, I think it's better for many reasons that we did that rather than go to the actual locations. So, I don't know. I mean, the maisel's only shot a little more than 11 hours of footage, and it's not a lot of footage. I'm missing the wonderful recordings and Super 8 footage of Carnegie hall, but that might never appear.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Right.

[Martin Scorsese]

I don't know. Margaret, do you have something to add?

[David Tedeschi]

Yeah, I just think we had kind of. David was given basically an expansive creative brief, but we had a fairly specific practical brief. Right. Which is the idea was to get to release this film and the 60th anniversary year. So we, we got it in there just in time. And it is, you know, as David described, it's a. It's. It's really a finite window of time and a finite amount of material that the Maisel shot of that visit. So I personally feel like it really was the right amount of. It's the right length. You know, we did. We. We couldn't have an episodic miniseries about this moment, you know, and so, I mean, you could, but it wouldn't. It wouldn't. It would be a different thing, obviously.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Sure.

[David Tedeschi]

So, yeah, there's a lot of projects where you long for more time and you definitely long for more resources, but this one felt. Felt right.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah. I look at it and I think, well, yeah, a miniseries would be great, but it doesn't overstay its welcome and it is so refreshing at every turn. Hey, what's up, you guys? This is Reid Mathis.

[Margaret Boddy]

I made a podcast called the Gifts of Improvising.

[Martin Scorsese]

The Gifts of Improvising that's coming out on Osiris.

[Margaret Boddy]

We talked to all your favorite improvisers. Natalie Cressman, Marco Benevento, Tom Hamilton, Aaron Machner, Holly Bowling, Bill Kreutzman, and Jay Lane.

[Martin Scorsese]

So what, you're doing a podcast?

[Margaret Boddy]

Yeah, doing a podcast.

[Robert Rodriguez]

So don't fear if you hear a foreign sound to your ear.

[Margaret Boddy]

We need the gifts of improvising.

[David Tedeschi]

Improvising.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Hi, I'm Christina Yurling Biro, host of the podcast Pop Culture Confidential. Join me as I go way behind the scenes with some of the most informed, influential people in entertainment and media. Hear actors such as Succession's Brian Cox talk about his favorite characters to play.

[Margaret Boddy]

There always has to be a mystery. The audience have to be in a situation where they want to know what's going on.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Meet studio execs like Pixar chief Pete Docter and learn his secret on how he makes us cry.

[Martin Scorsese]

Emotion is our first language and so.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Many others who are defining popular culture, from Obama speechwriter David Litt to Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi. We don't often think about food politically.

[Margaret Boddy]

Or we don't want to, but it really is.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Join me Search for Pop Culture Confidential wherever you get your podcasts. There's definitely a modern sensibility. It's easy to take something from the 60s and present it as it would appeared or how it was created in that time. But the effort put into the contextualization throughout is fabulous. And they luckily are making new Beatle fans every day. I can attest to that. A year ago now and then opened up a lot of doors for new people. What's this new last Beatles song hype? Oh, I like this. I'm gonna dig deeper. So I think what you guys presented is part of that ongoing process. One of the things speaking to the modern sort of history going into the Beatles, some of the unsung stuff besides the fandom is the aspect of black artists on the Beatles art. You guys did a wonderful job of bringing in not just talking heads, Smokey Robinson, Ron Isley, but that Miracles performing yesterday, I've never seen that before. What a show stopping moment. That was incredibly inspired. I'm so glad you guys did that. That was just wonderful. Talk about that some more. Was that a particular avenue you had in mind from the start? Did circumstance sort of lead you to that?

[Martin Scorsese]

You know, it always the idea that there would be some presence of covers, famous covers, something. We had talked about it from the beginning, but everything we tried to do was kind of formulaic and almost contrived. Smokey, the interview itself was a revelation to me. I mean, he had so much to say and it was so unexpected. I knew he had seen the Beatles in Liverpool before, as he says, before they were the Beatles and that's one of the reasons we wanted to interview him. But when he said that they were the first white artist of their magnitude to say that they like black music and they listen to black music and they love Motown, my mouth dropped open, you know, because I, I couldn't believe that no one had just, you know, and maybe Smokey hadn't heard it, I don't know.

[Robert Rodriguez]

So they start getting these royalty checks for you really got a hold on me what's this coming from?

[Martin Scorsese]

Well, that's what I was going to say too, that we live in era where people want explosive answers. In a way. Everything is very black and white. And I thought it was beautiful the way Smokey, what a big heart he has. And also how gratified he was that they recorded, you know, you really Got.

[Margaret Boddy]

A hold on me yeah.

[Martin Scorsese]

And then later that he recorded the Beatles and he did so quite freely. I thought that was, you know, John Lennon's. For, you know, John Lennon's voice and you really got a hold of me is quite stunning.

[David Tedeschi]

You know, it also seemed like a natural avenue to explore because it really starts with the Beatles and their love of this music and. And how inspiring it was for them and how coming to America was a dream for both, you know, their musical career reasons, but also just because this was. This is the land where their music that they just loved came from. And so there was almost kind of like a pilgrimage type quality to coming here. And you hear Paul saying, you know, we really, you know, they say they're going to fly in the Miracles and the Isley Brothers are playing and gosh, we hope we see them. You know, it's just a real genuine. They're fans.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Absolutely. Yeah. It was wonderful that even the people are no longer with us. Like Little Richard. You were able to include that stuff into the telling of this because all these artists are huge. And you look at all the Motown covers they were doing on their first couple albums, money and please, Mr. Postman and stuff like that. I know Supremes reacted to the Beatles by recording this album from Liverpool or something like that. It was like all British covers, like in 64, 65. So it was a two way street, for sure.

[David Tedeschi]

Yeah.

[Martin Scorsese]

I'd also add, though, it was remarkable to me, all four of the Beatles, but in this case particularly John, the matter of fact way without any artifice that they see things. And when John said, yeah, I mean, they've been trying to stamp out rock and roll from the beginning. I mean, I think it's because it came from black music and the fear of what it was, you know, the desire to move with that beat. I thought that was. It's very straightforward, it's very self evident. But I never heard it quite so directly expressed as that.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, he drills right down and puts his finger right on it. Absolutely.

[David Tedeschi]

Yeah.

[Robert Rodriguez]

So as fans, I know David, you've talked about being a New Yorker, and that was sort of ground zero for the British Invasion when they first came here. Ed Solomon show and Carnegie hall and the Central park shoot, which you guys covered as well. Margaret, tell me about your fandom, about your relationship with the Beatles, and how that's developed through the years.

[David Tedeschi]

Well, I always just loved music. I always really gravitated to music. I mean, my mom had different tastes, but I remember just really loving her vinyl collection of early Simon and Garfunkel. And, you know, she had kind of a folk kind of bent to her. Clancy Brothers were very, you know, kind of frequently heard in our home. But my brother got the White Album and this was kind of years, I would say it was maybe, I don't know, five years or so after it came out.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Okay.

[David Tedeschi]

Like that. And so I was maybe, I don't know, six or seven years old. And I. I just was fascinated by everything about that album. You know, the two record set, white, and then that beautiful color poster. And every song was just a sonic world unto itself. Like, every song was different. And, you know, I hadn't. I didn't know these four guys yet, so I didn't suss out that, like, there's George songs, there's John songs, there's Paul songs, you know, but there was such. Such an expansive range of song kind of styles. And lyrically, I was just immediately hooked. And from there it was this wonderful exploration of everything that came before and then everything that came after, because they obviously had been, you know, they were. They were done making recordings as a band. And then I really was into John's solo work and I was really into John's more experimental work as I got older. You know, his, his. I just loved that he and Yoko were making music together. And I love George's solo songs. And of course, I love Wings like everybody else. So it's kind of like this discovery after the fact. Yeah, but really, there's never a time where a Beatles song comes on the radio or starts streaming and you think, like, not in the mood for this right now. It's like there's just. Any time you hear the Beatles, you're just. It's just a complete embrace of it because it just, it just. It's so good. No matter how many times you've heard the songs.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yeah, absolutely. Boy, what a gateway drug, the White Album. Were you from the east coast as well?

[David Tedeschi]

I grew up in Massachusetts.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Okay. Okay. Not quite New York, but at least to a Midwestern person's way of thinking. Ah, the sophisticate side of the country, people are a lot more culturally aware and enriched. Speaking of which, I loved that you put in so much of the Leonard Bernstein stuff. The cultural ambassador for young people, certainly through the 60s.

[Margaret Boddy]

I think this music has something terribly important to tell us adults and we would be wise not to behave like ostriches about it. Besides, as I said, I like it. Of course, what I like is maybe 5% of the whole output which pours over this country like the two oceans from both coasts. And it's mostly trash. But that good 5% is so exciting and vital and may I significant that it claims the attention of every thinking person. Okay, let's get down to some specific songs. To the music itself. Here is a cheery bit by the Beatles. Now that's not just cheery, it's also very unorthodox. For one thing, it suddenly, if you noticed, leaves out a beat so that an ordinary four beat measure becomes a three beat measure. You see just one sudden bar of three among all those fours. We never used to find that in pop music. It's new.

[Robert Rodriguez]

If I'm not mistaken, there's a segment from that 1967 special he did on pop music in there. The one where they have a clip of Brian Wilson doing Surf's Up.

[Martin Scorsese]

Yeah, no, that's absolutely it. And we short clips from it.

[Robert Rodriguez]

That was fabulous. I'm so glad you put that in there. That's so great. That's something I wish they would put out officially. Great stuff.

[Margaret Boddy]

That's the Beatles. Always unpredictable and a bit more inventive than most. You know a remarkable song of theirs called she Said, she Said. Well, in that song, which goes nicely along in four, there's again a sneaky switch to three quarter time. Only this time it's not just for one bar, but for a whole passage. She said, you don't understand what I said. I said, no, no, no, you're wrong. When I was a boy, everything was wrong. Did you get it? If not, listen again to the Beatles this time.

[Robert Rodriguez]

There's so much that was surprising. A lot of it was very moving. Even I'm seeing it for the thousandth time. It's just the way you guys put it together, the fan footage. I don't want to say too much, but there's the girls that are accosted inside the hotel.

[Margaret Boddy]

Have you tried getting in the hotel?

[David Tedeschi]

No, but I know two other girls that did. And they made it all the way up to the 12th floor and then one of the policemen got them and.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Brought them all the way down again. I mean, there's no way you can.

[David Tedeschi]

Possibly get in to see them.

[Margaret Boddy]

Will you keep trying while they're in town to get in to see them?

[David Tedeschi]

Yes, we will. I'm calling you. I haven't got any tickets, but I'm gonna leave my house at 2:00 in the afternoon to try to get in. I don't have any tickets.

[Margaret Boddy]

They will.

[David Tedeschi]

So, dad, when I close out, what.

[Margaret Boddy]

Would you do if one of them actually stopped on the way out from the hotel and started talking to you?

[David Tedeschi]

I. I would talk back. I'd ask them, you know, how they like America, what do they think of, you know, American girls. I don't think I'd be too nervous.

[Margaret Boddy]

I don't know, maybe I would, but.

[David Tedeschi]

That would never happen.

[Robert Rodriguez]

So I don't even know if it's possible to track those people down now. But what a cool moment in time to have documented. It's so cool that the Maisels brothers caught that because you read about stuff like that and here is the actual thing happening in real time. Just another aspect of the Beatles fan experience that we know went on and here it is actually being depicted. That was just a, A wonderful moment that you guys got in there. This is embarrassing. We came up, we came on behind.

[Martin Scorsese]

Could you tell us where to go?

[David Tedeschi]

Come on.

[Robert Rodriguez]

We made it home, we got up here.

[David Tedeschi]

Are you going to register in the.

[Martin Scorsese]

Hotel or what room?

[Robert Rodriguez]

The other room around the corner.

[Margaret Boddy]

I don't have very good memory for nobody.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Oh, see that? In putting this together, was there a requirement for like running it by them for approval by Apple or anybody? Before you signed off on it, was there any sort of editorial direction that they gave you?

[Martin Scorsese]

There was no formal editorial direction. They saw several cuts and, you know, they told us what they thought. Each, you know, each of them told us what they thought of the cuts. As we said, for us, it was very quick turnaround. One year. The edit room was open for one year. And to be perfectly honest, we appreciated the feedback. You know, they're all good viewers. And you, you know, I'll give you an example, Olivia Harrison thought that. I don't know how to express it exactly, that John Lennon had said about going back to the black music. Had said that very well. But including Pat Boone and the Little Richard was something she urged us to do because we had been so segregated. And it's impossible to understand now this idea that even radio stations, some played black music, some played white music, you know, and white kids were expected to listen To Pat Boone. And of course, Pat Boone wasn't quite the same as Little Richard.

[Robert Rodriguez]

No. To circle back to John's remark, he wasn't one to inspire teens to move their bodies the way Little Richard did. Not to my awareness, Snapping motion. That was, again, a wonderful contextualization moment, showing people this was the world they were creating. And, folks, it's easy from this distance to forget that, because if you hear Beatles on the radio now, it's alongside Boston or alongside Zeppelin or something else. This was the world they were creating it. So context is everything. And it makes you appreciate all the more how miraculous their art was. It's just fabulous how ahead of the curve they were and every sort of discernible aspect, really.

[David Tedeschi]

Yeah.

[Robert Rodriguez]

So here it is, you guys, in conjunction with Apple, you're working with Peter Jackson, Giles Martin. Martin Scorsese, of course, did the Harrison film with the approval of Olivia and the other Beatles, Paul and Ringo. You've got this team together, at least loosely in place. What would be your dream project going forward, and how can I help?

[Martin Scorsese]

Well, it depends how deep your pockets are.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Okay. The day is young. Is there something you see as an obvious go to, if not immediately, at some point?

[David Tedeschi]

I don't mean to dodge the question, but to me, the. The dream project is whatever kind of emerges from conversations with Marty and David and I, in terms of. It's almost kind of less the subject than the idea of what. What we want to explore. Right. I mean, we've. We've worked together on movies. Two movies about Bob Dylan, a movie about the Beatles, a movie about George Harrison, to an episodic series and a feature documentary about Fran Leibowitz, the writer, humorist. And these are just kind of all things that either came to us through colleagues and friends or that Marty wanted to pursue. And starting with Italian American, which was the first documentary that Marty made, which was really in the kind of. In the style of some combination of direct cinema and John Cassavetes or something. You know, it's just. He just deciding that his, you know, he wanted to document his parents, you know, and it was also. I think it was something that was done for a specific PBS series about immigrants. But I think Marty would have made it without that assignment. And, you know, from there to American Boy to the Last Waltz to. I mean, he just. Documentary is in his cinematic vernacular, like he's really. He gets a lot from documentary interviews. It's helpful in his narrative, scripted work. There's an interplay, and I think he sees it as kind of one endeavor you know, but just on different scales.

[Martin Scorsese]

I would add that not unlike each of the individual Beatles, Scorsese seems to have these visceral reactions that lead directly to the work. So we all went to Cafe Carlisle to watch. You know, we were invited to go to a show, Buster Poindexter Sings the Songs of David Johansen. And as soon as it was finished, he looked at me and he said, yeah, we gotta film this. He actually, what he said was, you have to film this. And he said, I have to film this. And he said, we're gonna film it, but it's just because in the moment, it was so thrilling. I felt like it was one of the best concerts I'd ever seen. It was one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Very moving. And even though it's. It's. David Johansson doesn't have the fame of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, I find the movie very beautiful and his music sublime. So I think the next project might be surprising. You just never know where or what.

[Robert Rodriguez]

We'Re going to do outside Beatles again, maybe with this team or something else. Each of you, what would be your dream musical project to produce?

[David Tedeschi]

I mean, I've always admired and loved the music of Stevie Wonder. And I don't think that there's been, you know, I don't think he's allowed or been interested in a Stevie Wonder film, you know, but to me, that would be something I'd like to see, and it would be a dream to immerse yourself. And, I mean, he's got such an inspirational life, and he's an incredibly interesting and admirable figure who spans, you know, so many decades. And his music has always. He's never had a bad period, you know.

[Robert Rodriguez]

No.

[David Tedeschi]

So Stevie Wonder would be on my list. What about you, David?

[Martin Scorsese]

I'm not going to answer. First of all, they're too many. You know, there's many, many artists that, in a way, haven't been given their due. Even someone like Stevie Wonder who couldn't have been more successful, you know, and more beloved by his fans, the fact that there's not a movie about him, there are movies about him, but the fact that there's not sort of this kind of movie, this kind of focus, seems unfair.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Is Scorsese a fan?

[David Tedeschi]

Oh, yeah.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Okay. Well, maybe kind of lay that out there. Get him to follow the breadcrumbs. I was. I was very surprised recently because I actually was doing a bit of Stevie Wonder research recently that when he was 13, the album, the live album, where Fingertips came From that was a number one album. I'm not talking R and B chart. I'm talking Billboard Hot 100. That's a staggering achievement right out of the box.

[David Tedeschi]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Robert Rodriguez]

I had no idea it was 63. The little Stevie Wonder, the 13 year old genius, something like that. The live album where they caught fingertips, which I guess was a spontaneous encore because then you hear the band for the next artist come out. What key? What key? Yeah.

[David Tedeschi]

No, it's an incredible recording. Put that one on a stage. The space shuttle, get it or whatever that was. The Voyager. The Voyager, yeah.

[Robert Rodriguez]

That is amazing. It's staggering. Somebody of his magnitude in the pop world that nobody has done a serious treatment of his story, which is an unbelievable story. Why hasn't it been done yet? I don't know.

[David Tedeschi]

I mean, I think people have tried. I know some people who have, you know.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Oh, okay.

[David Tedeschi]

I probably shouldn't even talk about it, but I think that there's deep, deep interest. But, you know, sometimes people just aren't ready for that or aren't interested.

[Martin Scorsese]

I also think sometimes when there isn't a movie that. Yeah, there's a reason with the family, the estate or the artists themselves that sometimes it's lack of interest or sometimes it's just too complicated. I mean, there's the cautionary tale of the. The Prince documentary right now. Yeah. Trace, you know, because I'm dying to see that movie. Right.

[David Tedeschi]

All nine hours. Is it nine hours?

[Martin Scorsese]

I don't know, but I would. Yes, I would sit through nine. If you were. You know, I'm flying to London tonight. If you were to tell me I could watch it tonight, I'd cancel the flight, watch it and then get on at a plane in five in the morning.

[Robert Rodriguez]

So for each of you in the world you guys live in and beyond that, just as fans of music, fans of film, what are some of the music themed films you most admire that you think are really special?

[David Tedeschi]

So many.

[Martin Scorsese]

I know there's so many Woodstock, Les Blank films. I mean, we used a piece in Rolling Thunder from Lachadrome, the Tony Gadfliff left film, which I had never heard of the film before. Marty, of course, was very familiar with it and that's a just a stunning film.

[Robert Rodriguez]

What film is this?

[Martin Scorsese]

It's called Latch of Drone and it purports to be a history of the Romani people, but it's just music and it starts in India and it's like a caravan that moves through the Middle east and North Africa and France and Germany and Hungary and it's all music. So in Rolling Thunder, the piece we used was a festival, a music festival in the south of France and Django Reinhardt style.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Wow.

[Martin Scorsese]

Yeah. Real beautiful. Go ahead.

[David Tedeschi]

No, no, go ahead. I didn't mean to step on you. I have to add Jazz on a Summer's Day.

[Martin Scorsese]

Yeah.

[David Tedeschi]

Which is a Bert Stern documentary of the Newport Jazz Festival and just amazing document. And, you know, always with. I think any documentary, it's. It's some kind of combination of the stylistic and filmmaking approach and the actual what's being captured. Right. And that film kind of has it all. There was a series during the pandemic. Really good friends of ours in our community put up a screen in their backyard, and I programmed for that whole summer weekly screenings. And we watched jazz on a summer's day. We watched Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep. We watched. And we watched a lot of music films. And it just proves that idea that, you know, you need music to transcend life, you know, and life's challenges, and it's really wonderful. I could just watch music documentaries for, you know, several years and be happy.

[Robert Rodriguez]

I will tell you, I did get that sense of uplift watching Beatles 64, thinking, Boy, this is a tonic for the times. This is really. Sometimes you don't know what you need until it's put before you. It's like, yes, I needed this. This was great.

[David Tedeschi]

Oh, that's great to hear.

[Margaret Boddy]

What was in the back of your mind when you came to the hotel here?

[David Tedeschi]

Well, in the back of my mind was probably the thought that I'd never get to see them. But in the front of it was the hope that I would actually. I actually knew I wouldn't get to see them. But just. Just the gander to come into New York.

[Margaret Boddy]

Have you tried to sneak into the hotel?

[Robert Rodriguez]

Yes.

[David Tedeschi]

Yes, we were in the hotel.

[Margaret Boddy]

How far in did you get?

[David Tedeschi]

12 floor.

[Margaret Boddy]

What happened?

[Robert Rodriguez]

We got over way up to the 12th floor, and someone came up to us.

[David Tedeschi]

All right, girls, out. The thing is, he thinks we're screaming raving maniacs. And I just wanted to talk to him and say, why can't we see them? Why can't we talk to them?

[Robert Rodriguez]

We're not Beatle maniacs.

[Margaret Boddy]

Why aren't you satisfied of just watching them on television and reading about them?

[Robert Rodriguez]

Because we can't know what they're really like. We were sincerely and wholeheartedly interested in them as people.

[Margaret Boddy]

They're not particularly handsome, are they?

[David Tedeschi]

No, I don't think they're handsome, but you can. And I think their Personalities are so cute.

[Robert Rodriguez]

I think they're adorable to close. Is there anything that you guys have got upcoming that you'd want to talk about that you can talk about?

[Martin Scorsese]

Beatle64 goes on the platform on Friday.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Have you guys, as Beatle fans, I don't know. Most people subsist on the CD iterations of their catalog and are fine with that. But now we've got this Beatles 64 mono box set out. Is that something you guys are going to be indulging in? Because I know I am. And the purists are like, it's echo and it's not what they intended and it's a mishmash, all that stuff. But there's something about it that aligns beautifully with your film, that this is the currency of that first generation of American Beatle fans. This is how they experienced it. If you can detach from your purity tests and just listen to the Beatles, the way they were presented to these American fans who to their dying day stayed Beatle fans, this was how they got into it. Just respect it for that alone. This was how millions of Americans fell in love with them. So to me, it might not be my go to mixes or sonic presentation, but there's a charm and there's something sweet about hearing these things the way the American fans heard them. And God knows on this show I've had many first generation Beatle fans on in glowing terms, just lovingly, you hear it in their voices talking about, yeah, and then the Beatles second album came out and I learned you can't do that and played it for my fifth grade class. All those little stories, to me that justifies it. I don't know if you guys were similar, you sort of moved, even though you weren't first gen fans, you came into it a little bit later. But does it have that kind of nostalgic or some other kind of appeal for you?

[Martin Scorsese]

I would say I weaned myself off of vinyl many years ago. And then I was in LA right before I did no Direction Home. I was doing a job in L A and I went over to a friend's house and she had her original portable turntable and all of her original Bob Dylan out and we sat on the living room floor and we listened to all of them one night and all the ones from the 60s. And this sound brought me back to the moment when I had first heard All About Dylan on vinyl. And so I went back not for everything. I I have Apple music, I have Spotify, but I do really like to listen to the Vinyl. And I am. I had the same experience later with the Beatles music. So yeah, I'm looking forward to this new box set.

[David Tedeschi]

I am too. And more importantly, my husband is. My husband is a vinyl aficionado. Even before it was on trend. He's a musician and a producer and now a music archivist. So we will be listening and enjoying and, you know, comparing with different mixes of those same songs.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Huh. Well, I think nothing sets the table for that listening experience than seeing Beatles 64 first and then just wanting to re immerse yourself in that experience. Even if you didn't experience it the first time. It's just a wonderful presentation of it. So once again, congratulations on a film that is going to be enjoyed by millions a long time. I know that the listeners here are very excited that it's coming and they'll be happy to hear this conversation as well.

[Martin Scorsese]

Thank you. I appreciate it.

[David Tedeschi]

Thanks, Robert. It was a really. It was a great talk. Thank you.

[Margaret Boddy]

Great being here in New York.

[David Tedeschi]

Great.

[Margaret Boddy]

Okay. Washington. Oh, is that the place? I don't know. Washington.

[Martin Scorsese]

I just.

[Margaret Boddy]

Moving so fast.

[Robert Rodriguez]

So there you go. Heard them for themselves, what they had to say about this project. None of these people are dummies. They've been really good at this. Made a lot of films for a lot of years. A lot of successful presentations of stuff. Not everything that even a skilled filmmaker does might be to our expectations or to our likings. And you are absolutely allowed and right to have issues with things. For example, it is an interesting thing to make a film about the first US visit and have more screen time for Yoko Ono than you do Cynthia Lennon. That's one observation to be made. Brian Epstein being so reduced in what was in the finished film is another curiosity that I wasn't sure if I wanted to go there when I talked to them, so I didn't. I thought that what they had to say was plenty just to get a little bit of insight. So I didn't want to nitpick with them. That's what we're all for anyway. But on the whole, I really did enjoy it. I am a fan of the sort of collage effect of filmmaking. When I was much younger, I didn't like that at all. But as I get older, it's something I sort of matured into as a way that I think captures the spirit energy of life more than just strictly going down a checklist in order. I really like that. That approach. I really recognized the modern sensibility of bringing in other perspectives and voices in this telling. It was Great to present the synergy between the Beatles and the black American acts that they were such big fans of and get the take of the people are still among us that they did present in the film. I wish there had been more on the fans and in fact you heard David say that in the talk that the Maisels that Albert Maisels told him as much that that that would have been a real story to document in real time. They got a bit of it and as he said the Maisels weren't terribly interested in the music, they were interested in the phenomenon of the Beatles but what made it a phenomenon is the fan reaction and response so it would have been nice to have more of that real time but we have what we have and I do give them credit for digging up what they did dig up. Is there more to be done with the subject? For sure. Maybe part of the the issue that galls some people is that for lack of a better title first US visit was already used. So calling this Beatles 64 might imply to some well this is just a two week window. What about the rest of 1964? Chuck Gunderson, author of the fabulous Some Fun Tonight two volume History of the Beatles North American tours had a great idea about a documentary that should be made. Those North American tours which came later in the year I would love to see that come to fruition and would absolutely support it in any way I could. So he's the guy to do it? Absolutely. He's not a filmmaker but he probably is the deepest scholar we've got on those tours and that's a film I absolutely would love to see. So I don't know what else they could have called this film. Beatles 64 is snapping to the point but yeah doesn't really describe the content but going into it we should pretty much know. Certainly the imagery used in the promotion of the Sullivan show stage tips the hand enough to what it all is. So anyway I hope people haven't seen it yet will enjoy it. Check out this conversation and maybe the ones that saw it and found it lacking maybe give it a second viewing see if your opinion changes at all but hopefully anyone who wants to can access first us visit or It's Happening or yeah yeah, yeah the earlier iterations of the Maisels brothers footage. It's all great stuff, great immediacy. It is the real life A hard day's night and it still packs a punch that great energy and enthusiasm and adrenaline that fans of age experienced in 1964. I'd love to see a Beatles 63 film made as well, just covering what happened in the UK and Sweden and all that stuff. That would be a fabulous film. And we've got a book to work off of as well. So there's that till next time.

[Margaret Boddy]

I have to get on Channel two. Yeah, we're on this thing now. In a minute.

[Martin Scorsese]

Ready, fellas?

[Robert Rodriguez]

Let's go.

[Margaret Boddy]

We're late. They All Know.

[Robert Rodriguez]

Something about the Beatles Created and hosted by Robert Rodriguez, executive producer Rick Way, title song performed by the Corgis Something about the Beatles is an evergreen podcast.

[Margaret Boddy]

And tomorrow morning, an exciting morning on Wednesdays. Brad Phillips as the battles of the Beatles, the Beatles take on all the groups in the world. Yeah, yeah. Tomorrow night at 7, the Beatles read their own poetry on a documentary. Meet the Beatles. Oh really?

[Robert Rodriguez]

I don't understand this.

[Margaret Boddy]

Tomorrow night from 7 to 8 here at wins. Don't we ain't written for a filter cigarette. That really satisfies.

[Robert Rodriguez]

The Helping Friendly Podcast explores the music and fan experience of Fish through interviews and deep dives on shows and tours. For more than 10 years, we've created insightful and fun discussions about our favorite band, and with the help of our guests and thematic series, we're still discovering new angles of appreciation for Fish. And when the band is on tour, we provide a review of every show the following day. As one of our listeners said, any Fish fans that enjoy meandering conversations and incredible insight on new and old fish shows? This is for you. Highly recommend. It's not just about the band and the shows, it's about the journey getting there throughout 2024, we're going to be running down the top 25 fish tours of all time, and that'll be interspersed with show reviews and regular episodes. Join us and check out the Helping Friendly podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This is Lawrence Lanahan, journalist, musician and host of Rearranged, an Osiris Media podcast about music arranging. Once a song is written, arrangers make musical decisions that shape how we end up hearing the song. We're not just talking about adding orchestral accompaniment like horns and strings, or doing a cover version of a song. Arrangement can be putting happy music over dark lyrics, using samples, recording all acoustic, even tiny decisions like putting an electronic loop into an acoustic song to draw your attention to an important turn of phrase. It's all arranging. Rearranged Episodes are documentary essays where I use arrangements to answer some big questions like what is a song and what can a song become? And how can the sound of a song change the meaning you take from it. Listening this way has changed my relationship with music. Tune in to remember Rearranged, and maybe it'll happen for you too. Learn [e-mail] Osiris.