Backbeat

Backbeat (1994)

5 guys. 4 legends. 3 lovers. 2 friends. 1 band.

Chronicles the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. The film focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe, John Lennon, and Sutcliffe's girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr.

Date of release
1994-04-01
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (116)
Runtime
1h 40m
Genres
Drama, Music
Director
Iain Softley

Casting

Interesting facts

Backbeat is a 1994 British biographical drama film directed and co-written by Iain Softley in his feature directorial debut. It chronicles the early days of the Beatles in Hamburg, West Germany, focusing primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon, and also with Sutcliffe's German girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr.

Production

The original script was written by Iain Softley based on a series of 1988 interviews. After failing to secure funding, screenwriter Stephen Ward was brought in to completely rewrite the script in 1993. Ward interviewed Astrid Kirchherr and others who were close to the Beatles during their time in Hamburg. The project was green-lit that year.

Although set in Hamburg, the film was mainly shot in London, aside from some location filming in the St. Pauli quarter.

Due to the film's focus on the early days of the band, the soundtrack includes no songs written by members of the Beatles but various songs the group performed in Hamburg, written and recorded by other artists. In this respect, rather than re-create the sounds of the period, iconoclastic, rebellious musicians were recruited (as a producer noted, the Beatles' pre-recording stage act was "the punk of its day") to better convey the way the music was…

Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum): vocals (Paul McCartney)

Greg Dulli (The Afghan Whigs): vocals (John Lennon)

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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