#ian softley

[rollingstoneart]

Backbeat by Blair Drawson.

Rolling Stone | April 21st, 1994

[kevinspaceyarchives]

Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges at the London Film Festival Closing Gala of K-Pax | November 22, 2001 

[dontworrymum-differentiscool]

The wings of the dove (1997) 

[one-more-kiss-dear]

Hackers [1995, Iain Softley]

[lucyyhoneychurch]

Helena Bonham Carter and Linus Roache in “The Wings of the Dove” (1997)

[francolynchwakamatsu]

The Skeleton Key (Iain Softley - 2005)

[greensparty]

Blu-Ray Review: Backbeat

Of all the 25th anniversaries we’re celebrating this year (1994 was quite a year for film, music and pop culture as a whole), I wanted to shine a light is the British film Backbeat directed by Ian Softley. In addition to celebrating the 25th anniversary of the film’s release on April 14, 1994 (in the U.S.) it was recently re-released on blu-ray from Shout Selects.

the new Backbeat blu-ray release

I’m a life-long fan of The Beatles (obvious news to anyone who knows me or reads this), but in terms of movies about The Beatles (scripted narrative films that is, not documentaries) they are actually very hard to get right. When I say this, I’m not talking about movies that the Fab 4 were in like A Hard Days Night, Help or Yellow Submarine, I mean movies where actors play members of The Beatles. What I applaud Softley for with Backbeat is that he used his movie as a showcase to tell the story of the fifth Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe (1940-62), who was the band’s bassist from 1960-61 (and died this week in 1962 FYI). Yes, that’s right: before they were the Fab 4, the band was a 5-piece where Paul McCartney was on guitar, Sutcliffe on bass, John Lennon on guitar and vocals, George Harrison on guitar and Pete Best on drums.

the real Stuart Sutcliffe (center) with George Harrison (left) and John Lennon (right) circa 1960

The film stars Stephen Dorff (in one of his finest performances) as Sutcliffe and traces his friendship with Lennon (played by Ian Hart) in art school, forming the band, and going to Hamburg, Germany to do a residency. It was there that Sutcliffe met and fell in love with photographer Astrid Kirchherr (played by Sheryl Lee, AKA Laura Palmer of Twin Peaks). As the band was evolving and taking off, Sutcliffe’s interests were leaning more towards art and less towards music.

When I saw this in the movie theater in April 1994 with my Dad, I actually didn’t know that much about Sutcliffe. I’ve always been fascinated by him because he was a part of the biggest band in history but left before the became famous. It’s not even like Pete Best, who was fired and replaced by Ringo Starr in 1962, it was someone whose interests were elsewhere. Like a lot of biopics, this movie definitely has an issue with condensing facts and downplaying certain characters, i.e. the relationship between John and Paul is highly downplayed and George and Pete have minimal screen time. But what this got right was the relationship between Sutcliffe and Kirchherr, these bohemian artists at the dawn of a revolutionary decade. Also, Hart is fantastic as Lennon. Years later the first movie I ever worked on was Ted Demme’s indie film Monument Ave and Hart played Denis Leary’s partner in crime in it. He has always been an underrated character actor.

Dorff, Lee, and Hart, with Gary Bakewell in back

In 2009 I visited Liverpool while I was in England and in 2011 I visited Hamburg while I was in Germany. For me to re-visit Backbeat, I have so much appreciation that they actually filmed in Liverpool and Hamburg to get the real locations for this film. 

Also - I need to mention the soundtrack. Instead of having a lot of early primitive Beatle recordings, producer Don Was assembled a 90s garage band to perform the band’s early songs. It was an epic super group: Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum on vocals, Greg Dulli of Afghan Wigs (another cast member who was later in Monument Ave), Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on guitar, Don Fleming of Gumball on guitar, Mike Mills of R.E.M. on bass, and Dave Grohl of Nirvana on drums. With the exception of the soundtrack (which I named my #5 Dave Grohl Album of All Time) and a performance at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards, they never played again. Too bad! Imagine if they reunited and did more Quarrymen or early Beatle songs? How about a reunion tour?

The Backbeat Band recording the soundtrack

The film is a buried treasure and it was one of my favorite films of 1994, up there with Pulp Fiction, Clerks, and more. There’s also a ton of cool featurettes. It’s all very similar to the mid-00s DVD, but this looks spectacular on blu-ray!

For info on Shout Factory’s Blu-ray: https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/backbeat?product_id=6984

[movieassholes]

You seem overly upset, Mark. To borrow a phrase from Navarro, “You need to chill.” For your information, all beings have the capacity to cure themselves, Mark. This is something we’ve known on K-PAX for millions of years.

Prot - K-PAX (2001)