FS3 Messages and Values: A Hard Day’s Night.

• What is this film about? What are the explicit and implicit themes?

• Before answering this question, it is important to remember that this film was made as a promotional vehicle for The Beatles in a matter of weeks. The studio, keen to cash in what they thought what be a passing fad, tasked the director Richard Lester with the job of producing the film cheaply and quickly so as to maximise possible revenues from the film before the Beatles became unpopular ( this obviously did not happen ). As a result, the target audience of the film was quite specifically the fans. They were on the whole young, white and from all classes. The popularity of the Beatles and the phenomenon of Beatlemania was a direct result of both the social and cultural revolutions. This form of youth culture served to unite young people regardless of gender and class.

Challenging Authority.

• Aiming at such a youth audience necessitated the representation of the Beatles as both loveable and mischievous. There would have been no appeal in having them portrayed as respectable, middle-class boys. They needed to be cool, edgy and reflective of a youth ideology in which respecting your elders was no longer an obligation. This accounts for the various scenes in which they openly disregard authority and authority figures. They are represented as rebels, but professional rebels who get the job done.

Staying themselves.• The most important representations are the boys

themselves. The film, through its frenetic style and camerawork, seeks the portray these young men as fun and joyous. They were, literally, on top of the world at the time, and as such were the role models for millions of young people. This is perhaps why they are represented as free-thinking and modern/contemporary. They manage to stay true to their roots and identities despite the adulation, by maintaining a healthy disdain for the media and those who seek to exploit their fame and image. This is an ironic stance, as the film itself has been designed to exploit the band, yet one feels the director is distinctly on their side.

Challenging Age.• Although the film is about young people for young

people, it makes an important distinction between age and prejudice. Many of the elders and authority figures become the object of the boys’ mischief because they treat them with superiority and contempt. The boys do not mock them simply because they are old, but because their views are incompatible with the times. This can be most clearly seen in the character of Paul’s grandfather who is, despite his age, the most irreverent and mischievous of the lot! It can also be seen in the sequence where Ringo bonds with the young boy by the river. Instead of acting as an authority figure, scolding the boy for not being at school, Ringo empathises and identifies with the boy.

Challenging class.

• One of the important aspects of the Beatles was that they were form Liverpool, the north of England , and that they were working-class. They had achieved a level of material wealth and success normally beyond the scope of their peers and as such represented new era in which people could aspire to lives beyond the confines of their classes. The social revolution in short.This can be seen through the scenes in which those characters belonging to the middle-class are mocked.

Bad media.• The previous point is most aptly illustrated in the scene

where the boys attend a press conference during which they cannot get either a bite to eat or a drink. The press, on the other hand, are stuffing themselves and this is emphasised through a series of close-ups of their mouths and laughter. The fact that the media do not care who the Beatles actually are is emphasised. through the questions the press ask. Questions like “What do you call that hairstyle” and “Are you a Mod or a Rocker” are primarily concerned with the band’s image and not their music or who they are. The responses from the band, though seemingly in line with their anti-authoritarianism, are actually the appropriate answers to question so disrespectful.

“Pimply hyperbole”

• Another scene where the media are portrayed as exploitative comes when George Harrison stumbles into a production office and is mistaken for a male model. The secretary is pleased with his appearance and takes him into the office where the director is surprised that George can speak and read. He is also surprised that George is a real young person and not a ‘phony’ (though the phonies are easier to handle). He then runs George through his duties and expresses contempt for both the way young people think and the way they speak. Nevertheless, he uses George’s expression “Grotty” as a term he can use to appeal to a youth market. When he promises George a meeting with Susan, the show’s eponymous front woman, George expresses condescendence calling her a “well-known drag” and a “posh bird who gets everything wrong”.

“Pimply hyperbole”

• This confirms the director’s inability to predict and understand youth markets, as well as the fact that he didn’t recognise George in the first place!

• He treats young people as commodities (products that can be bought and sold) and as a consequence is bad at his job. His almost scientific prediction of when the next youth trend will occur, reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how young people work. Youth trends are not regular or predictable and the film makes the point that young people are not products, but the agents of change and revolution. The Beatles, unlike Susan, are more than a passing fad, they are genuine talents that are there to stay!

The message of change

• One of the key themes of the film, therefore, is that youth is an agent of change, and that, specifically in the context of the film, the Beatles were heralding revolutions that were both sexual and social as well as cultural. The film suggests that audiences get on side with the youth, interpreting these changes as positive and worthy. This is a message that would have appealed to the film’s target audience, perhaps accounting for such an approach, yet there is clearly a feeling that the director seeks to promote this change, through both the mise-en-scene and narrative. The vibrancy and energy of the film’s style, conceals any of the bleaker issues that were affecting young people at the time, or any of the negative consequences these changes were having on society. There is, however, an ambivalent attitude towards the them of “getting out”.

Notes on the Micro• Grainy black and white film stock.• Hand held cameras (Richard Lester devised a system where he

would shoot each scene with multiple cameras, allowing for more freedom in the editing room)

• Jump-cuts (there are numerous cuts that do not obey the rules of continuity, thus breaking the audiences’ suspension of belief and lending the film a surreal feel.

• Location shooting (no studios)• Naturalistic performances• Slapstick comedy (many have called Ringo’s scene with the young

boy reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin)• All these characteristics show how the film was clearly influenced

by the French New Wave who made film like Breathless ( A Bout De Souffle) and the 400 Blows.

Flipsides• Aside from the fun, hip lives the film shows the Beatles as

having, there is a hint at a darker element to the film. This is clearly signaled in the opening sequence, where the Beatles have to escape a screaming hoard of fans. The director lends the fans a sense of the hysterical, especially at the end of the sequence when the Beatles run towards the train. The use of low-camera angles make the fans seem almost dangerous! The point is that the Beatles are victims to their own success.

• This is confirmed by the first musical sequence which takes place in a cage, symbolizing the boys’ lack of freedom.

• Before that Paul’s grandfather pretends the boys are prisoners.• When moaning, Paul’s grandfather describes their itinerary: “ a

room, then a train, then room, and a room etc… (not accurate quotation!) This is their lives, moving from one room to another, one set or studio to another. When they go out in the evening, they get reigned in by the management.

Flipsides• When the boys break out of the studio to proclaim freedom, it is

because they are presented with an open field devoid of fans. This is reinforced by the use of the helicopter shot. It is only in such an environment that they are able to be totally free.

• Even when Ringo assumes a different identity after having escaped, he still gets stopped by the police.

• All these points show that despite the youthful optimism and their charming mischief, the Beatles aren’t really free, and have to work constantly. This perhaps account for the title in which the events of the film are described as a hard day.

• One of the key themes of sixties British cinema was the idea of “getting out”. How does this film deal with that theme? Have they escaped and become symbols of the social revolution? Or are they in fact continuing to be working-class, with music as labour, albeit in an unorthodox manner? What does the film suggest about the nature of fame?

Getting/got out.

• Whatever your opinions, which are important, one can see the film as symbolic of the sixties in a positive way, and even if the boys are trapped by fame, it seems that they will keep on running, a symbol of their youthful energies!