The Beatles
The Beatles Anthology DVD

The first thing that struck me about this essential, mammoth, entertaining, and exhilarating music film/documentary of about 12 hours (in a five-DVD set), is that it flows by, literally, like water: obviously thanks to the subject of the work (well, the story of the Beatles, I don't think there's anything more to add), the extraordinary (to say the least) footage, songs, videos, an exemplary montage (it's all deeply captivating, without sacrificing any part of their saga) and the fundamental idea of letting the Beatles tell their own story (yes, including John Lennon of course, thanks to a meticulous work of searching and passionately selecting all his available interviews) and another key figure like George Martin (the interviews were prepared for the occasion by people who knew the protagonists, so as to bring out total spontaneity and depth from the long account). In short, the general impression here is that you are not just watching a documentary about the Beatles: you are actually reliving those years with them.

The second thing I reflected on is that the odyssey narrated (with a constant sense of humor and self-irony, typical of the four; as evidenced by some of their early interviews, which regularly turned into comic sketches) lasted seven mere years. I'll repeat. Just seven years. I'll repeat again. Only seven years: it's a detail often overlooked when reflecting on what these four guys managed to create in this limited timeframe: think of their pieces, including several dozens (!) that literally entered the collective imagination and are now part of human history and think about their infinite compositional talent (they made it clear to everyone that the most important thing of all, in rock, is the ability to write great songs); think about the way they evolved the song form and the very concept of the album; think about the revolutionary use of the recording studio, which from 1965 became their creative laboratory for experimentation; think about how much they were able to change and evolve in those few years, indicating the only path to survive artistically: curiosity, the constant desire not to repeat oneself and always looking forward. Finally, think about what rock was and the cultural context before them and how they literally revolutionized music and history.

And it is precisely the "rubber soul" of their 1965 album that marks a significant step forward in their musical journey: they had already produced at least two masterpieces in the two preceding years ("A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!"): obviously, the relevant films are also analyzed and explored) and they were already beginning to tire of performing live because concerts were essentially becoming more and more nonsensical riots ("no one cares to listen to us: they just come to scream," they would say: there are a slew of extraordinary live performances that are shown and blended perfectly within the epic narrated in this giant, and you'll notice that all the concerts, until '66, have this continuous deafening background noise accompanying their performances: can it be said that they were even unwitting precursors of shoegaze?). So the following year they decided to definitively eliminate any live dimension (they also decided to avoid any television broadcast, preferring to send prerecorded videos to be aired by various broadcasters), also because what they were doing in the recording studio, between the creation of sounds and cutting-edge arrangements, and increasingly complex vocal harmonies, was becoming increasingly difficult to reproduce live (it's hilarious to see Harrison at one of the last concerts in '66, while performing "Paperback Writer," egging on the crowd's screams exactly at the point where the vocal harmonies became more complex: in this way, thanks to the audience's screams, the decent mistakes they consistently made, and of which they were fully aware, were completely covered).

Now reflect for a moment: they had become the most famous, important, and influential musical reality in the world (they would perform at Shea Stadium in New York, for the first time, in 1965, in front of more than 55,000 screaming fans, just two years after their debut); they had met Dylan (an important moment both for him and for the Beatles themselves, because they influenced each other and the results would be immediately visible in the grooves of their respective records); they had become Baronets; they had met (and jammed with) Elvis. Oh, they also had just met "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which was introduced for the first time in Lennon and Harrison's coffee through sugar cubes, without their knowledge (they found out immediately after consuming it): a tragicomic experience on one hand, a horror film on the other (panic attack in an elevator where they suddenly convinced themselves there was a fire), and yet spiritual (Harrison declared that he suddenly became convinced that God existed, that he saw him in every single blade of grass, that it was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours, experiencing an overwhelming sense of well-being): the most logical thing to do at that point was exactly what they did, to exploit their enviable status to experiment, evolve, and further advance their music.

Immediately after the grotesque misadventure of the live stage in the Philippines (for a series of misunderstandings, they did not show up at the Government Palace where they were awaited by the President, the First Lady, and their weeping children, along with another 400 fans: practically, they were beaten and kicked onto the return flight, without even being paid, among other things), they decided to focus exclusively on producing studio records. Even the album covers would say a lot, in a crescendo of finds that would correspond to the crescendo of creativity and musical evolutions: the faces that elongate, the strange frame and writing of the album title in "Rubber Soul," anticipating what would become the typical psychedelic sixties graphics; the four no longer photographed but drawn along with something creeping between their faces in "Revolver," the transformation into "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with the explosion of colors, messages, and faces in "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," the four masked (so much that they might not even be them) on the cover of "Magical Mystery Tour," and finally disappearing along with anything else on that of the "White Album." And what about the music? Well, the music, from "Rubber Soul" onwards, becomes increasingly complex, and the visions that suddenly start to fill their pieces become more expansive and profound.

Among Lennon's famous statement (for the very few who still do not know it: he said that Christianity is now falling apart and doomed to vanish, and that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ), the consequential public burnings of their records, the Ku Klux Klan declaring their intent to disrupt their concerts by any means, the hallucinatory drift, the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and their definitive attainment of the status as the most representative and leading band of that era, the Summer of Love, Indian mystical currents, contact with the Maharishi, Epstein's death, the birth of Apple, and the completely out-of-the-head film "Magical Mystery Tour" (even disturbing the scene of Lennon, with a hallucinatory expression, pouring tons and tons of spaghetti, using a shovel, into a plate on a restaurant table), it is interesting to note how their constantly smiling expressions, just 3/4 years earlier, are becoming more and more a distant memory (one could say even belonging to another era: the Lennon of 1969 will actually be almost unrecognizable compared to that of the 1963/1966 period).

After the release of the animated film "Yellow Submarine," an idea emerged for a sort of film/documentary about the sessions of the album that was to be called "Get Back": a declaration of intent that reflected their desire to return to the immediacy and energy of their beginnings: in reality, the album would be released, with its title changed to "Let it Be," simultaneously with their breakup in 1970 ("Abbey Road" would, in reality, be the last album they would record; substantially aware that it would be the last, and it is really nice to realize that it will remain one of their undisputed peaks) and the film will document discomforts, boredom, disputes, anger (they focus, for example, on the discussion between Harrison and McCartney that would culminate in a weary and irritable Harrison closing with "tell me what the hell you want me to play and I'll play it," or something like that) of a band that is falling apart, having essentially the awareness of what was happening. Certainly, the famous final rooftop concert is memorable, with them, despite being warned that police officers were on their way to stop them (because "they were disturbing the public peace": any comment is obviously superfluous), instead turning up the volume as much as possible, and Lennon immediately after the power cut, saying: "I want to thank you all from us and the group and hope we passed the audition" (a phrase that will also close "Let it Be," their last released album).

The film/documentary starts right from the images of the famous rooftop concert and is therefore structured as a very long flashback that starts from their complex origins up to the account of the recording of the two final tracks "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" (starting from the recordings of Lennon's respective demos): "I had to convince myself that John had just temporarily stepped out of the recording room to be able to concentrate and play on those two tracks" will basically say, an emotional Ringo Starr about the two new pieces through which, as McCartney will say, in some way, the Beatles eventually came together again, one last time.