Beatles '64 unseen footage captures "specific moment in time", says director

But hasn’t this admittedly era-defining moment been covered already? And how is it that unseen material is continually unearthed of the most documented and pored-over musical act in history? What is there left to say? Even this moment in their career has been covered before, in The Beatles: the First US Visit in 1991, and the 2016 Ron Howard documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – the Touring Years.

“Both Marty and I were very aware of Eight Days a Week,” admits Tedeschi, joining me online from his home town of Brooklyn. “The feeling was, ‘What can we do now?’ But Beatles ’64 is so specific, and so much of what was shot was here in New York. We knew that the Maysles brothers had been interested in the fans, but they had never been the focus in any of the other iterations, so in that sense it came together pretty quickly. It's such a specific moment in time.”

This, then, is the story of Beatlemania from a fan’s-eye view, gazing up from the frosty New York streets – a snapshot of a Beatles moment like we have never seen before.

But first, clarifications. The aforementioned “Marty” is legendary film director Martin Scorsese, who produced the film, having worked with Tedeschi on documentaries like No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, Shine a Light with the Rolling Stones and George Harrison: Living in the Material World. In other words, this isn’t their first rodeo when it comes to making documentaries about world-famous musicians – or even Beatles.

The Maysles, meanwhile, were Albert and David Maysles, documentarian siblings who were “embedded” with the Beatles from the moment they landed at JFK, and whose footage makes up most of the film – a film that opens at a particular time of darkness in the US.

“The Kennedy assassination was clearly a part of the moment,” Tedeschi says. Kennedy had been shot less than three months before the Beatles touched down, and the story goes that the Fab Four provided a well-timed injection of joy into a nation that had lost its optimism. “What you see in these audiences is like they’re being lifted out of sorrow,” a present-day Paul McCartney tells Tedeschi in the film.

In the footage, the first confirmed cases of the US strain of Beatlemania appear more visceral than anything previously seen in Europe. “We’re kind of extreme here in New York, that’s part of it,” laughs Tedeschi. “Ringo draws parallels between Liverpool and NY – the directness. The New York newspaper guys loved that because that’s what they were like. There was a lot of scepticism when they arrived, and it wasn’t one person, it wasn’t Elvis… it was these four guys, and each one was significantly different from the other.”

Does America, even now, experience the Beatles differently from the UK? The Beatles’ US label, Capitol, modified their albums, altering track listings and artwork. The fact that the label had initially resisted the Beatles also meant that, in 1964 and 1965, nine Beatles albums were released in the US at once… talk about delayed gratification (The Beatles: 1964 US Albums box set was released last week).

“Part of it is how the music was released, but a bigger difference had to do with the radio,” muses Tedeschi. “I think I read that in ’62, the Beatles covered a Motown song (Please Mr Postman on the BBC’s Teenagers Turn), and that was the first time a Motown song had been played on British radio. In the US you had all these radio stations playing different kinds of music.”

The Beatles’ connection with Black American music and the civil rights movement is also touched upon. In the film, McCartney recalls, “To us, it was the land of freedom, but once we got here we learnt it wasn’t quite the story.”

Tedeschi says, “Eight Days a Week dealt with the tour in Florida when they wouldn’t play for segregated audiences, and we didn’t want to go down the same path. On the other hand, it’s about this important moment in New York history, too. It was a key moment for civil rights.”

This is backed up by a mixture of old and new interviews from Smokey Robinson, the Isley Brothers, Ronnie Spector and Little Richard. “It’s not in the film, but we have a clip of Sam Cooke on the radio. The DJ is putting them down and Sam says, ‘Oh no, these guys are here to stay. What they’re doing is very special.’ There was this back and forth that created a lot of beautiful music.”

All this tumult, all this societal change, and it all took place across one visit over just two weeks… a hard day’s (fort)night indeed. “They were pioneers, and the world was playing catch-up with them,” says Tedeschi.

Both surviving Beatles appear, alongside unseen Beatles Anthology footage of George – but how difficult was it to push beyond the well-rehearsed anecdotes and get something fresh? Tedeschi denies that was an issue.“I didn’t think that Paul was rehearsed,” he says. “In my experience interviewing both of them, both Paul and Ringo are very in the moment, focused and insightful. With Ringo especially, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time he ever said those words.” He refers to a moment in the movie where Ringo dryly recounts: “When things go wrong, everybody looks at the drummer.”

In any case, no matter how many times the stories have been heard by some fans, every generation needs its own introduction – so how does he think the casual Beatles fan, or even the casual music fan, will engage with this? “We always focus on how the younger audience connects with the material,” he says. “Of course there are a lot of young Beatles fans.”

They’re still relevant, after all – 2023’s “last” single Now and Then was the Beatles’ first UK number one in 54 years. “Music fans who are in their 20s who have seen the film say, ‘I had no idea the Beatles were like this,’” says Tedeschi. “They’re so young, they love it so much and you can see each one of them is having such a good time.”

Since there is clearly an appetite, what of more “unseen footage”? Has he snooped around the fabled Apple archives? He smiles, “No – I have no idea what else there is. People ask me all the time, ‘Are there more films coming?’ and I have no idea,” he insists.

But of course, there are already more films coming, albeit of a different sort. In 2027, a separate biopic for each Beatle will be released, directed by Sam Mendes. One more shot at an exclusive: what has Tedeschi heard? “It’s a great idea – to me a bit reminiscent of Todd Haynes [director of 2007 Bob Dylan film I’m Not There]. Like, how do you capture Dylan? And I think this is similar… How do you capture that Beatles experience? And Sam Mendes is a wonderful director, I’m really curious what he’s going to be up to. I’m a fan – that’s where the enthusiasm comes.”

A lot of enthusiasm was born on the day the Beatles’ Pan Am flight 101 touched down on American soil. And it has only spread over the following six decades, ensuring any frames of “unseen footage” will be lapped up by hungry fans old and new alike – whenever the Fab estate sees fit to release it.

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