Backbeat (film)
Encyclopedia
Backbeat is a 1994 British
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...

-German
Cinema of Germany
Cinema in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film.Unlike any other national cinemas, which developed in the context of relatively continuous and stable political systems, Germany witnesses major changes to its...

 drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Iain Softley
Iain Softley
Iain Softley is an English film director. He was educated at St Benedict's School, Ealing, where he played the part of Thomas Becket in its 1975 production of T. S...

. It chronicles the early days of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The film focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe was a Scottish artist and musician, best known as the original bass player of The Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue a career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art...

 (played by Stephen Dorff
Stephen Dorff
Stephen Dorff is an American actor, best known for portraying Stuart Sutcliffe in Backbeat, Johnny Marco in Somewhere, and for his roles in Blade and Cecil B. DeMented.-Early life:...

) and John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

 (played by Ian Hart
Ian Hart
Ian Hart is an English stage, television and film actor.-Early life:Hart, the grandson of Irish immigrants, was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. He is one of three siblings and was brought up in a Roman Catholic family...

), and also with Sutcliffe's German girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with The Beatles and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days....

 (played by Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...

). It has subsequently been made into a stage production, debuting at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre in 2010. It has been announced that Backbeat will make its London West End début on 10 October 2011 (previews begin 24 September) at the Duke of York's theatre.

Production

The film is based on interviews conducted by the writer/director Iain Softley with Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with The Beatles and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days....

 and Klaus Voormann
Klaus Voormann
Klaus Voormann is a German Grammy Award-winning artist, noted musician, and record producer. He designed artwork for many bands including The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Wet Wet Wet and Turbonegro. His most notable work as a producer was his work with the band Trio, including their worldwide hit "Da Da...

 in the spring of 1988 and later by screenwriter Stephen Ward who was brought into the project after the initial script by Iain Softley failed to raise the financing for production.

The soundtrack to the movie
Backbeat (soundtrack)
Backbeat is the original soundtrack of the 1994 film Backbeat starring Stephen Dorff, Sheryl Lee, Gary Bakewell and Ian Hart. The music was produced by Don Was.The album won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music."The Backbeat Band" consists of:...

 includes no songs written by members of the Beatles, but various songs the group performed in Hamburg, written and recorded by other artists.

Rather than re-create the period sounds, iconoclastic, rebellious musicians were recruited (as a producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 noted, The Beatles' pre-recording stage act was "the punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 of its day"). This was done to better convey the way the music came across to the audience, at the time. The musicians were all members of well-known American rock bands:
  • Dave Pirner
    Dave Pirner
    David Anthony "Dave" Pirner is an American songwriter, singer, and producer best known for being the lead vocalist and frontman for the alternative rock/grunge band, Soul Asylum.-Biography:...

     (Soul Asylum
    Soul Asylum
    Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band that formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1983.The band originally formed in 1981 under the name Loud Fast Rules, with the original line-up consisting of Dan Murphy, Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller and Pat Morley. The latter was replaced by Grant Young in...

    ): vocals
  • Greg Dulli
    Greg Dulli
    -Biography:Greg Dulli was born and brought up in the working-class city of Hamilton, Ohio. Although he was raised a Catholic, he is now agnostic. Dulli first came to public attention in the late 1980s with The Afghan Whigs when he joined D.C. transplant bassist John Curley and Louisville, Kentucky,...

     (The Afghan Whigs
    The Afghan Whigs
    The Afghan Whigs were a soul-influenced American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio. PopMatters described the band as "beyond simple genre categorization, and though lauded by the music press, never got their just due."-Band history:...

    ): vocals
  • Thurston Moore
    Thurston Moore
    Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

     (Sonic Youth
    Sonic Youth
    Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

    ): guitar
  • Don Fleming
    Don Fleming (musician)
    Don Fleming is an American musician, best known for being the frontman of Velvet Monkeys, B.A.L.L., and Gumball.-Biography:...

     (Gumball
    Gumball (band)
    Gumball was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1990. The original lineup consisted of Don Fleming , Eric Vermillion , and Jay Spiegel . In 1992, a fourth member was added, Malcolm Riviera who had previously played with Fleming and Spiegel in the Velvet Monkeys.-History:After Fleming...

    ): guitar
  • Mike Mills
    Mike Mills
    Michael Edward "Mike" Mills is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock group R.E.M.. Though known primarily as a bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and pianist, his musical repertoire includes also keyboards, guitar, and percussion instruments...

     (R.E.M.
    R.E.M.
    R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...

    ): bass guitar
  • Dave Grohl
    Dave Grohl
    David Eric "Dave" Grohl is an American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for Foo Fighters; the former drummer for Nirvana and Scream; and the current drummer for Them Crooked Vultures...

     (Nirvana
    Nirvana (band)
    Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...

    ): drums
  • Henry Rollins
    Henry Rollins
    Henry Rollins is an American singer-songwriter, spoken word artist, writer, comedian, publisher, actor, and radio DJ....

      (Rollins Band
    Rollins Band
    Rollins Band was an American rock band led by singer and songwriter Henry Rollins.They are best known for the songs "Low Self Opinion" and "Liar", which both earned heavy airplay on MTV in the early 1990s...

    ): vocals on "Love Me Tender"


The original recording of "My Bonnie
My Bonnie
My Bonnie is the name of a 1961 single, a 1962 album and a 1963 EP by Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers, better known as The Beatles.-History:...

," performed by Tony Sheridan
Tony Sheridan
Tony Sheridan , is an English rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist...

 with the Beatles as a backing group was used in the film, the only use of a real Beatles performance.

Additionally, the film's distributor, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was a film studio, founded in 1979 as a European competitor to Hollywood, but eventually sold and merged with Universal Pictures in 1999....

, was then under common ownership with the label which owned the rights to release and distribute the Beatles' music from the Hamburg days, Polydor Records
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...

.

Main cast

Actor Role
Stephen Dorff
Stephen Dorff
Stephen Dorff is an American actor, best known for portraying Stuart Sutcliffe in Backbeat, Johnny Marco in Somewhere, and for his roles in Blade and Cecil B. DeMented.-Early life:...

 
Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe was a Scottish artist and musician, best known as the original bass player of The Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue a career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art...

Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...

 
Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with The Beatles and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days....

Ian Hart
Ian Hart
Ian Hart is an English stage, television and film actor.-Early life:Hart, the grandson of Irish immigrants, was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. He is one of three siblings and was brought up in a Roman Catholic family...

 
John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

Gary Bakewell
Gary Bakewell
Gary Bakewell is a British television actor who is best known for his roles as Paul McCartney in the film Backbeat and the lead character Richard Mayhew, in Neil Gaiman's BBC television series Neverwhere....

 
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

Chris O'Neill George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

Paul Duckworth Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

Scot Williams
Scot Williams
Scot Williams , is an English actor, writer and producer for stage, film and television.As an actor, Williams made his film debut in the 1994 Iain Softley film Backbeat, in which he played the role of The Beatle's original drummer Pete Best...

 
Pete Best
Pete Best
Pete Best is a British musician, best known as the original drummer in The Beatles. He was born in the city of Madras, British India...

Kai Wiesinger
Kai Wiesinger
Kai Wiesinger is a German actor.-Life and work:Kai Wiesinger began taking private acting lessons as a teenager. After his Zivildienst , he became an acting student in Munich...

 
Klaus Voorman
Jennifer Ehle
Jennifer Ehle
Jennifer Ehle is an American actress of stage and screen. She is known for her BAFTA winning role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 mini-series Pride and Prejudice.-Early life:...

 
Cynthia Powell
Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lillian Lennon is the former wife of musician John Lennon, and mother of Julian Lennon. She grew up in the middle-class section of Hoylake, on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. At the age of twelve, she was accepted into the Junior Art School, and was later enrolled in the...

Wolf Kahler
Wolf Kahler
Wolf Kahler is a German actor.Born in Kiel, since 1975 he has appeared in many US and UK television and film productions. Due to his height - he is 6 feet 2 inches tall - sharp features, blond hair and blue eyes he is often cast in roles as Nazis or other unsympathetic German characters...

 
Bert Kaempfert
Bert Kaempfert
Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader and songwriter. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records, and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, such as "Strangers in the Night" and "Spanish Eyes".-Biography:He was born in Hamburg, Germany - where he received his lifelong...

James Doherty Tony Sheridan
Tony Sheridan
Tony Sheridan , is an English rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist...



Hart also played Lennon in the film The Hours and Times
The Hours and Times
The Hours and Times is a 1991 drama film written and directed by Christopher Münch. Starring David Angus and Ian Hart, it is a fictionalized account of what might have happened during a real holiday taken by John Lennon and The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein in 1963.-Plot:It is 1963 and John Lennon...

. Bakewell later reprised his role as McCartney in the television film The Linda McCartney Story
The Linda McCartney Story
The Linda McCartney Story is a 2000 American drama television film directed by Armand Mastroianni, starring Elizabeth Mitchell and Gary Bakewell. Based on the book Linda McCartney: The Biography, presenting the life story of Linda McCartney...

, as Williams again played Best in the television movie In His Life: The John Lennon Story
In His Life: The John Lennon Story
In His Life: The John Lennon Story is a television film produced in 2000 by Michael O'Hara Productions and NBC Studios . The film was written by Michael O'Hara and directed by David Carson.-Plot:...

.

Response

Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

 was not impressed with the movie, stating:
One of my annoyances about the film Backbeat is that they've actually taken my rock 'n' rollness off me. They give John the song "Long Tall Sally
Long Tall Sally
"Long Tall Sally" is a rock and roll 12-bar blues song written by Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Enotris Johnson and Richard Penniman , recorded by Little Richard and released March 1956 on the Specialty Records label....

" to sing and he never sang it in his life. But now it's set in cement. ('Paul' sang Long Tall Sally in the Glasgow stage version). It's like the Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...

 and Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...

 stories. The Buddy Holly Story
The Buddy Holly Story
The film was adapted by Robert Gittler from Buddy Holly: His Life and Music, the biography of Holly by John Goldrosen. It was directed by Steve Rash.-Plot:...

does not even mention Norman Petty
Norman Petty
Norman Petty was an American musician, songwriter, and pioneer record producer who helped shape modern popular music, including pop and rock....

, and The Glenn Miller Story
The Glenn Miller Story
The Glenn Miller Story is a 1954 American film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart in their first non-western collaboration.-Plot:...

is a sugarcoated version of his life. Now Backbeat has done the same thing to the story of The Beatles.


Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with The Beatles and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days....

 praised the movie for its accuracy in its mood and detail of her relationship with Sutcliffe and The Beatles.

Backbeat at the Citizens' Theatre

Re-imagined for the stage by the original writer and director of the 1994 film, Iain Softley, Backbeat premiered at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre on 9 February 2010 featuring a live band.

Cast
Actor Role
Alex Robertson Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe was a Scottish artist and musician, best known as the original bass player of The Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue a career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art...

Isabella Calthorpe Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with The Beatles and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days....

Andrew Knott
Andrew Knott
Andrew Knott is an English actor.- Biography :Knott was born in Salford and now lives in Yorkshire. His first acting was done in British television and radio programmes. He was trained in the Oldham Theatre Workshop...

 
John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

Daniel Healy
Daniel Healy (actor)
Daniel Healy is the Glasgow born Actor who has recently been cast as legendary Singer Songwriter Paul McCartney in Iain Softley's theatre production of Backbeat opening at the Citizen's Theatre on the 9th of February....

 
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

Jamie Blackley George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

Oliver Bennett Pete Best
Pete Best
Pete Best is a British musician, best known as the original drummer in The Beatles. He was born in the city of Madras, British India...

Justin McDonald
Justin McDonald
Justin McDonald is a British actor of film, television and theatre.- Biography :McDonald was born in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. He was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London. However he left early to film on the television drama Distant...

 
Klaus Voorman
Kate Hodgson Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lillian Lennon is the former wife of musician John Lennon, and mother of Julian Lennon. She grew up in the middle-class section of Hoylake, on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. At the age of twelve, she was accepted into the Junior Art School, and was later enrolled in the...

Paddy Lannigan Bruno Koschmeider
Robert Reina Bert Kaempfert
Bert Kaempfert
Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader and songwriter. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records, and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, such as "Strangers in the Night" and "Spanish Eyes".-Biography:He was born in Hamburg, Germany - where he received his lifelong...

Charles Swift Tony Sheridan
Tony Sheridan
Tony Sheridan , is an English rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist...


Backbeat at the Duke of York's Theatre London

Backbeat – the adaptation of the 1994 film by Iain Softley on the birth of the Beatles – will be rock 'n' rolling its way to London's Duke of York Theatre for its West End premiere from October.

Backbeat is the story of how The Beatles 'became' The Beatles – when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe embarked on their journey from the famous docks of Liverpool to search for success in the seedy red light district of Hamburg, working eight days a week, in the clubs of the tawdry Reeperbahn, performing rock 'n' roll covers night after night.

The compelling triangular relationship between the band's original bassist Stuart Sutcliffe, the striking German photographer Astrid Kirchherr whom he fell in love with, and his best friend John Lennon, became an intrinsic part of the Beatles' story – and put them on an unstoppable trajectory onto the world stage.

Stuart's struggle between his best friend and the band, Astrid and his art, makes Stuart the troubled focus of Backbeat. His death, aged only 22, in the same year that the Beatles appointed Brian Epstein as manager, signed to Parlophone Records by Sir George Martin, and released their first single 'Love Me Do', adds to the poignancy of this remarkable and vivid portrait of the early 1960's.

Backbeat features the all-time rock 'n' roll classics that the Beatles cut their teeth with – 'Twist & Shout', 'Rock 'N' Roll Music', 'Long Tall Sally', 'Please Mr Postman' and 'Money' - live on stage as performed by 'the Beatles'.

Co-written by Iain Softley and Stephen Jeffreys, with musical direction by Paul Stacey, and directed by the award-winning David Leveaux.

External links

  • www.atgtickets.com/2871/669/London/Duke-Of-Yorks/Backbeat-Tickets
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