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DVD: The Beatles - Anthology (EMI)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
If you're one of the millions of people who sat spellbound in front of your television set back in 1995 during the 3 nights they ran The Beatles' Anthology, and you weren't disappointed (I don't know anyone who was, personally), this will blow you away. Of course, many of you may have purchased the video set when it was released the next year, in which case you won't be quite as knocked out because you'll already know that there are hours and hours of extra footage that wasn't on the TV miniseries. I wasn't one of those people, so this is news to me.
I just spent the last several nights alternately gasping, stuttering, pointing at the screen, uttering half sentences like "That was never..." and basically driving my wife nuts by acting like a little boy on Christmas. You see, I know the television version like the back of my hand. I taped it and I've watched it many times, for my own enjoyment and to introduce each of my children to The Beatles. I know exactly what will happen and when. Imagine my shock when what should be a short concert clip turns into two complete, uninterrupted songs from that concert, in what appears to be digitally cleaned-up video and sound that's to die for. The clarity on both counts is stunning. At first I wasn't keeping track of how long each chapter was. There are 8 chapters plus a disc of special features. It wasn't until the end of the third chapter that it had reached the point where the first night of the TV series ended. The TV series was 2 hours per night, minus over half an hour for commercials. I started timing chapters of the DVD and found they averaged about an hour and ten minutes, meaning what the TV series had summed up in an hour and a half, the DVD spent 3 and a half hours on. Beatle heaven!
The extras disc is not particularly long (under 2 hours), but 1) it's high quality and 2) I felt I'd been showered with much appreciated extras during the chapters, so I certainly have no complaints here. What they've cooked up for the extras disc is a 7 chapter collection of shorts. "Recollections" is extra footage from the segment where the surviving Beatles were relaxing outdoors in the sun, sitting on the lawn while George played Ukulele. There's good conversation and singing between George and Paul, with Ringo playing drums on his knees. Just three friends on a day out. "Back at Abbey Road" takes us into the studio with the Beatles and George Martin to do a little fader sliding, which is always fun to listen in on. You hear the different parts of the old recordings as George isolates John's voice here, Paul's bass there, etc. There are two segments relating to "Free As A Bird," on the recording of the song, which features discussions with the Beatles and Jeff Lynne and footage of the actual recording sessions, and then there's an interesting segment on the making of the video. The video for "Real Love" is included as a stand-alone segment, as well. In "Compiling the Anthology Albums." the surviving Beatles and George Martin discuss how you select song lists when 10,000,000 hours of tape exist.
Last, and possibly most interesting, is "Production Team." I played this last because it sounded least interesting, and in fact I fully expected to find nothing more than a text list of credits, but instead I found a fascinating story of what it took to make Anthology happen. Neil Aspinal, the former Beatles road manager who was much more than just that, is listed as executive producer, but as we learn in this feature, he lived and breathed the Anthology for a few years before we in the public even knew such a thing would exist. There are many revelations in this segment and much respect is gained for the 10 (that's right, just 10) people in that little office who put this thing together.
The Beatles were and are an industry, and Anthology has upped the stock value tremendously. You could be cynical and say "Oh, they've gotten us to buy it again," but I went more than willingly. This was so "Have to have it" I didn't want to wade through the red tape one sometimes encounters waiting for review copies, so I gladly paid for it. Had to have it NOW. They could be charging a whole lot more than they are for a 5-DVD set, but it's listing for $79.99 and actually selling for $59.99 on Amazon. I would have paid that for a DVD version of what I had seen on TV, with cleaned up sound, just so I wouldn't have to worry about the tape wearing out. As a fan who has watched everything that has come out over the years, purchasing most of it, I thought I'd seen all the footage there was. In the past week I've watched dozens of pieces of film I never knew existed, and that's a major rush for any Beatles fan.
© 2003 - DJ Johnson