See what you think of this.
I had vague ideas it was in the works, but the trailer has come as a welcome surprise.
Obviously, trailers will play to the back row, but it does seem on first glance to look pretty generalist in its focus. Like all things Fab, it’ll be on my immediate to-do list, but I had maybe hoped for a more nuanced take on the man than this suggests. Given that most folks will only be vaguely aware of him, there may have been scope for a more niche portrait?
We’ll see.
Cilla looking HOT!
“it was the trousers”
“Well, they were, eh, they were very, em… tight.”
Oh dear. Looks awful.
INTERIOR – A Liverpool coffee shop where youngsters are frugging to the latest beat combo on the juke box
EPSTEIN (Places two clear glass cups containing frothy coffee on a table and sits down next to his friend)
I say who’s that surly-looking bit of rough in the leather jacket with the guitar over by the coffee machine?
HIS FRIEND (looks over at the youth dismissively)
Him? That’s a young tearaway name of John Lennon. He’ll never amount to much!
I have little hope, all these 60s based bio pics are cut from the same cloth. There will probably be cringeworthy lines from ca 1962 such as someone saying “All You Need is Love, John” or someone telling Brian he has to “Hide his Love Away”.
Or pretty much any biopic come to that. They’re always a series of key biographical points joined by material with no other purpose than to lead up to the next one, and everyone lives their every moment with extraordinary emotional intensity.
I don’t think I have seen a good portrayal of McCartney. Eric Idle as a Rutle is probably the best one I can recall. John Alderton might have been good, given his resemblance.
There have been many dramatisations of the fabs and it’s generally “Paul” who lets them down.
I have a theory about this – do you want to know what it is? Go on then…I think Paul McCartney is like an etch-a-sketch. He can do astounding, astonishing things on the etch-a-sketch but one shake and he’s back to a blank screen. He doesn’t dwell on things or build up layer upon layer. When he draws on previous work, it’s reptilian muscle memory rather than a specific contrived attempt to recreate a past glory. When he is not working on something, he seems to be an open book, receptive to any ideas and creativerelationships. A blank canvas.
Most other creative people, including actors, become increasingly serious as they get older. Their art leaves a layer of sediment in their soul every day and it’s something they have to attend to every day. A new project must move on and build on the last one. They cannot wipe the slate clean and have some time off, like Macca can.
This is why actors have trouble with him. By the time they get to play McCartney they have developed their craft and as a result study his mannerisms intensely. I think when playing Macca you need to completely empty your mind and adopt his happy-go-lucky persona because that’s the version of Macca we tend to see.
Related to this, David Jason talked about Roger Lloyd-Pack’s brilliant Trigger character. He said the remarkable thing about his acting ability was that when he played Trigger, there was no expression in his eyes, nothing. Nicholas Lyndhurst agreed and added that he hadn’t seen anyone else do that so effectively in his career.