ABSTRACT

This chapter analyses A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964), a film that places us at the centre of a new youth culture phenomenon – Beatlemania. It emphasises how the film, despite its genre-shifting expressions of youthful exaltation, achieved a rare cross-generational acceptance – the first of many ‘dualities’ at play. It shows the extent to which The Beatles are mediated – culminating in a television concert, the film employs a proliferation of photographs and camera screens, while also utilising the methodologies and iconography of contemporary pop art practices. It examines how The Beatles are mythologised – Lester intimates a quasi-religious status via art-house allusions, implicitly situating the group as purveyors of a fresh and secular promise of fulfilment. This promise is shouted out with genuine conviction by Beatlemania’s (predominantly) female fanbase who thus define alternative and independent values that mark them off from the adult world. Nonetheless, this new enraptured youth culture is skilfully marketed (including via this film), with the foregrounded Beatles brand pushing all to become not just fans (or even worshippers) but also/especially consumers.