I watched this the other night on TV, and something occurred to me for the first time: both John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s mothers are referred to in passing as if they were both still living, but as we know (I didn’t at the time I first watched the movie) they both had died, fairly recently (within the past ten years or so) and quite traumatically for both Lennon and McCartney. who were both close to their mothers.
So why do you suppose they went along with the script as the rather insensitive scriptwriter wrote it? They both had the power to request (to say the least) changes in the script, but especially where references to their mothers were concerned. I realize “They were playing fictional versions of themselves” is one response, but I don’t buy it. If I were one of them, I doubt I would have made my request very politely, but I certainly would have spoken up. Why didn’t they?
The Beatles had no expectation that the screenwriter would know any of the intimate details about their lives and as artists themselves they knew better than to question the process of an artform they were barely qualified to participate in. They were very much in the mode of being told where to go and what to do, and what to say at that time, either by their manager, or their producer, or their director. “Here Paul; this is your gramps!” “Right-o, Mr. Lester!”
I think this is likely the reason. They were still very young men at that time: John was only 23 during the filming of AHDN, and Paul was only 21, It was filmed when Beatlemania had just recently become a global thing: AHDN was filmed just a few weeks after their landmark first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and only about a year after they had taken England by storm.
They were likely still very beholden to their management to be making decisions for them on their careers and publicity, and the film was, first and foremost, a publicity thing, and not meant to be an actual documentary. Even if John and/or Paul had felt hurt or upset about the references to their mothers, they likely wouldn’t have had the leverage to actually demand script changes.
If it had been few years later, when the band members were a bit older and more experienced, and had taken much more charge of decisions related to the band and their careers, the two of them might have pushed back more on those script details.
I also wouldn’t be so sure of how much power they had to request script changes. Keep in mind, in 1964 they weren’t yet The Beatles, the most popular musical group in history whose music is still loved, revered, and studied more than 50 years later, acknowledged musical geniuses, one of the most successful songwriting teams of all time, etc, etc. They were a band that was having quite a bit of success, but after all, how long could that last? Better get a movie in the cinemas pretty quick, before the fickle public moved on to the next big thing, and everybody forgot about these Beatle chaps.
Why should experienced comedy scriptwriters take writing advice from some flash-in-the-pan musical group?
I found the fact they replaced Eppy with two bumbling managers and included a subplot about a fictionalized grandfather of Paul’s far greater departure from reality than passing references to their mothers. I suspect those significant departures set an expectation of just how fictionalized the movie was. To say nothing of the endless Marx Brothers antics that filled their day. As irreverent as these guys were, it’s not like George teaching somebody how to shave by shaving their reflection on a mirror is pulled from their lives. Ultimately, had the production not been such a comic heightened reality piece, maybe they would have balked, but when it came to everything except making music, they were deferring to the grownups, primarily Brian Epstein.
I don’t know. Because they were playing themselves? And because neither of the references were important to the plot? And because the lines touched on a sore spot for both Lennon and McCartney?
You folks are talking as if they were shy bumbling teenagers. They were grown men who had made a lot of money and had a lot of success by that point, and moreover they had a reputation, seen in the film, as brash young men who bristled at authority and enjoyed challenging it.
What would you do in that situation? You’re playing yourself in a movie and a line is put into your mouth casually referring to your living mother, who died traumatically just a few years earlier. Are you afraid of what terrible things will happen to your career if you ask the director if that line could possibly be changed? Most of us would speak up, I think.
Perhaps they didn’t care that much about the line? That it didn’t bother them enough to bring it up. Or they didn’t want to key on their mums dying at that point in their careers.
Who only starting making money and having a lot of success when they started listening to experts in things like bookings, costume, recording, and filmmaking. When you watch the Beatles on stage or being interviewed in old TV and film clips, those are four carefully crafted roles being played; roles largely created by other people.
I don’t think you give them enough credit for cheekiness. There are plenty of stories about them when they were unknown and poor, like George Harrison’s famous “I don’t like your tie” to George Martin when they first met. They largely invented their public personae.
Over an extremely short period of time; at the time that they were making that film, they were less than two years removed from being club musicians, without a record contract.
They weren’t babies, but they also weren’t necessarily business-savvy at that point, either. Of the four, only John and Paul attended college, but they were both at an art college, and neither of them graduated. They had placed a great deal of trust (and control) in Brian Epstein’s hands, to the point that the Beatles themselves have admitted that they usually didn’t read the contracts which he had them sign.
You know where they got that cheekiness? Listening to the Goons on radio and watching the Dick Lester Show on telly. You know, the show written by the director and screenwriter of A Hard Day’s Night? George Harrison made that comment to the man who had produced almost all of the comedic influences the Beatles drew upon. They were pupils with extremely talented teachers and they knew it.
I’m not talking about business savviness. I’m talking about being personally offended by an offensive line.
Look, obviously, THEY didn’t take offense at the lines, and they chose to emphasize professionalism over personal pique. I’m just noting that I found it odd last night, and had the thought that I think, in that situation, most of us would have spoken up. They did not. I find it a little strange.
Since both references are throwaway remarks, irrelevant to the movie, they weren’t written in spite of their feelings, but rather they were written ignorantly of the fact that their mothers had died recently. It is a little strange that the scriptwriter had done so little research into their actual lives.
Alun Owen spent no small amount of time with the Beatles while writing the script. He wasn’t a stranger. In fact, the Beatles were kind of in awe of their fellow Liverpudlian because of his TV resume.
Let me get this straight: are you saying that Owen knew perfectly well that Lennon’s and McCartney’s mothers had died recently and wrote the lines about them anyway, or that he didn’t know and wrote the lines out of ignorance?
Beats me. But it would be no surprise if the Beatles deferred to him, especially if they wanted to keep their personal lives out of their public ones. John wasn’t keen to let people know he was married or had a kid, either.
You asked why we suppose Lennon and McCartney didn’t object to it and several have answered. I’m interpreting that you are finding our responses — which seem to be loosely in agreement — unsatisfactory.
At this point, I have to wonder whether the only human that can provide a response without pushback may be Sir Paul himself, so maybe ask him?
