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The legend of the martyr is very difficult to destroy.
But if you stay alive, you can at least match it.
You have, above all, time.
Also means to try.
This is what we can conclude after watching the latest most outstanding documentaries about The Beatles on various platforms, a phenomenon that still, more than fifty years after their separation, continues to fascinate on a universal level.
“We are more famous than Jesus Christ,” said John Lennon one day when he became very upset.
He blurted it out, just like that, in an interview that was published in March 1966. After being canceled for the phrase on several television networks and conservative media, he did not apologize for it.
He wasn't exaggerating that much either: given the dimension that decades later continues to magnify the group's footprint in the history of popular culture, he may even have fallen short.
More information
'Get Back': Peter Jackson's Beatles documentary is an event
The Beatles' career after they decided to break up has been much longer.
It remains intact in this 21st century and giving rise to talk where debates really take place today: on a small scale, on social networks;
and in a big way, on audiovisual platforms.
Various documentaries can be found today in all of them.
But if we analyze three —
Get Back, The Beatles,
by Peter Jackson, on Disney,
McCartney, 3, 2, 1,
on Amazon Prime and
Lennon: Murder Without a Trial
, again on Apple — we can see that, if the 20th century was by John Lennon, the XXI is by Paul McCartney.
An image from the documentary 'Get Back'.
After the separation in 1970, both were in a draw.
Later, Paul's career alone or with The Wings shone brighter than John's with Yoko Ono.
But tragedy struck.
The murder of Lennon in the doorway of his house, the Dakota Building, in New York by a lunatic catapulted him to the status of a myth.
Mark David Chapman, his name was.
And he said he was inspired by
The Catcher in the Rye
, the book by JD Salinger that from then on acquired another status: that of cursed and, incidentally, a bestseller.
Chapman's trigger shocked the planet more than the band's goodbye.
And John Lennon ascended to heaven after a martyrdom to further dispute, already dead and sacrificed by a madman, the throne to Jesus Christ.
In
Lennon: Murder Without a Trial
, interesting because it provides testimonies from direct witnesses for the first time, Chapman's girlfriend asks him a question, perhaps basic, although very intentional: "But you, have you realized what you have done?" ?”
A question that went beyond making the murderer see what a despicable act it is in itself to have taken someone's life.
The aggravating factor was that that someone multiplied by going from earthly idol to divine and canonized creature.
Furthermore, not by a secular institution, but by popular acclaim on a global level.
Something only within the reach of Jesus Christ, indeed.
The thing about Lennon, in that regard, got crazy.
But his genius and charisma were so enormous that he withstood everything.
Even the perpetual adoration of someone as radically transparent and earthly as the former Beatle was.
Paul took a backseat.
Crouched in his capacity as a companion of someone who for many inspired a philosophy of radical rupture and pacifist encouragement in the midst of the war escalation of the Cold War and gave his life - involuntarily but directly - more because of his fame than because of his positions. .
In the 21st century, the landscape has changed and Paul McCartney has learned very well to take advantage of it
.
Get Back.
The Beatles,
the documentary—or rather, the fundamental document—by Peter Jackson demonstrates this.
It was the first big bet on the Disney platform in 2020 and throughout its 468 minutes many things become clear.
Jackson uses in a transparent, crude way, we would say, and with a very discreet but masterful montage, unpublished material from the group's last rehearsal and recording sessions.
Intense work sessions that gave rise to their last two albums:
Abbey Road
and
Let it be
.
Closeness, intensity, a radical truth, constantly exudes in the images.
The gestures and the silent, dark and burdensome presences.
The vibrant harmony and creative electricity speak for themselves.
One sits down to accompany those last days of the band not as an indiscreet spy, but as part of the family.
He invites us to enter into something that was not just a regular creative event.
If not one of the fundamental moments in the invention of contemporary popular culture.
John Lennon in a part of the documentary 'Lennon: Murder Without a Trial'.APPLE TV
Jackson introduces us to the midst of that state of imaginative group grace that founded none other than the pillars of pop music.
Nothing similar, nothing richer in this field has been produced in the last 50 years.
The period of concentration and confinement initiated by them from their album
Sgt Peppers
Lonely Hearts Club Band
, in 1967, until those last days that conclude with the concert on the roof of Savile Row, the street of tailors, in London, have course a fact of creative genius fundamental in the art and history of music.
They were three years touched by grace.
Absolutely magical.
What the documentary reveals is, without a doubt, McCartney's subtle but forceful leadership in that last moment.
His determination, his way of guiding, encouraging, shaping what was coming out.
His speech, his attitude, his charisma, his will to carry cannot be compared to that of any other member of the band.
Above all, with John's attitude, much more passive, although also intense and committed.
McCartney still wanted to stay.
Lennon was leaving.
If we add to that another gem that can be seen on Disney+ like
McCartney, 3, 2, 1
, the move leaves no room for doubt.
In this case, the person responsible is Rick Rubin, also a legendary producer from the eighties to this day.
Creator of countless hits by artists and groups as diverse as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, Shakira, Kaney West, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Lana del Rey or the last stage of Jonny Cash and the resurrection of Neil Diamond... That is to say , a discreet music star belonging to the generation after The Beatles, but completely aware of what contemporary music owes them: his absolute paternity.
In these sessions—also austere, transparent—next to a mixing console, McCartney unravels the underground secret of his black and white songs.
The informative height, the fascinating naturalness.
That Mozartian ease for the instinctive construction of art.
The mastery of melody, his most prodigious gift, is wonderfully reflected in his chapters absent of artifice with an exciting nakedness, an astonishing simplicity.
Another document to understand from today the fundamental importance of him and the fundamental role that Paul, himself, plays in the history of music.
An image from the series 'McCartney 3, 2, 1'.
But not only that means of artistic expression marked The Beatles.
They left not only notes and songs behind them.
The three documentaries show us that if you give music content with transformative ambition, it can contribute to changing the world.
In the documentary about Lennon's murder this also becomes important through the social phenomenon.
In the other two, too, although the key in the work of Peter Jackson and the work of Rick Rubin lies in music as a means to achieve it.
They tried, dedicated to an innocence that can also spring from absolute egocentrism.
The phenomenon they unleashed encouraged a revolution and a change in mentalities and customs through art.
That can be considered a true cultural war and not what many elevate to that category now, when nothing more than a retrograde ideological brawl hides behind the term.
The question is whether, despite having fought it with weapons and baggage, The Beatles finally won it...
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