On paper, adapting The Beatles' songbook for a theatrical production sounds like the easiest thing in the world because, on a purely superficial level, it has already been done; at moments during the runtime of the recently produced Beatles-esque feature film, Across The Universe, there are very surrealist scenes that express – by turns – a very literal or very impressionist representation of The Beatles’ music and because of that a bit of creative license had to be taken (in both cases) because the characters in the songs were often very metaphorical. That might sound confusing, but the crew and ensemble cast of the film pulled it off – so why couldn’t another company do it? If the budget and a comparable company are in place, of course the production could be replicated.
There’s a catch though; while the budget is there to produce literally anything one’s imagination can concoct, the company involved in Love is Cirque du Soleil which means that the presentation is a live performance that can’t be edited as a film is and with that information comes a daunting production schedule because they’re not only comparable, they exceed the scope of any live performance troupe in the world. The further catch is that their sensibilities are unique and they aren’t interested in doing any sort of show as anyone else could.
That’s one element that presents a strong personality, and in the case of Love, anyone that signed on with the production has also signed on to meet the expectations and approval of a cast of overseers that includes Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, George and Giles Martin, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison in addition to a galaxy of production managers, art directors, producers, directors, choreographers, performers and a host of other dramatic characters.
Good luck trying to not wake up screaming every morning during this logistical nightmare and not drown in the saliva of your own nervous breakdown.
In the first fifteen minutes of All Together Now alone, viewers of this documentary are inundated with all of these incredibly strong and unique personalities as well as some of the potent exchanges between them and the technology involved in a Cirque production as well as the human feats of acrobatic impossibility that require design and execution. By the half-hour mark into the documentary’s runtime, you notice that, other than watching Giles Martin successfully assemble some of the musical mixes that eventually appear in the performance, you haven’t seen anything happen yet.
At that moment, it becomes apparent that this documentary is less about a Cirque du Soleil production called Love that concentrates on a performance piece drawn from The Beatles’ repertoire and more a documentary about the process of ensuring that the plug isn’t pulled on a unique presentation by Cirque du Soleil that uses Beatles music.
…Except when it only has to do with stroking the egos of the stars involved that aren’t onstage but whose opinions matter. The film has a propensity to fall off topic when former Beatles take the screen and recall “the old days.” Those asides – particularly McCartney’s on-and-on recollections about how things “used to be,” how the first Beatles “was done in one day” and how they’d “record twenty songs by the end of the week” – tend to run excruciatingly long and, while Beatles fans and historians might find them interesting, miss the mark cleanly in a documentary about the making of a stage production that he has nothing to do with outside of providing the score.
As the documentary progresses and the remembrances of different facets in The Beatles’ songbook continue, in some way (particularly in the recollections of George Martin) the film does achieve an unexpected sweetness and romance in the love affair for and remarkably delicate treatment of these songs. In that way, All Together Now does become engrossing as the production of Love overcomes spectacular odds and the very strong personalities involved eventually succumb to the simultaneous beauty of the music and this treatment and enactment of it and knuckle under to a fantastically arduous endeavor successfully realized. At that point, while you’re still aware that you’re not going to see the Cirque presentation outside of the odd snippet, that fact becomes less of a concern as you watch a group of people who have harbored such mistrust and animosity toward each other for so long sitting next to each other at a theater.
That is what this DVD presentation really showcases; no matter how much ego and miscellaneous personal difference there is between this group of people, the love of the music is what dissolves the barriers. If ever it was said that love is the strongest force on Earth – that love can overcome any obstacle – this film makes a poignant case for the argument.
Artists:
The Beatles Online
Cirque du Soleil online
Love presentation web site
Labels:
Capitol Records
Apple Records
