The Hours and Times [DVD]

Expectations always run high with anything related to The Beatles and Lennon in particular (just witness the attention received by the Philip Norman biography of Lennon published last year). But it's probably better to keep them modest for this semi-fictionalised account of the break John Lennon took with his homosexual manager Brian Epstein in Barcelona in April 1963. Given that writer and director Christopher Munch couldn't even afford to pay the actors for it, this is a good little movie (it's also a short one, clocking in at 53 minutes excluding the featurette). It's clear that Munch has done his research - you can recognise many of the finer details from the respective biographies of these stars (from Lennon's habit of fastidiously doing up his tie and then pulling it loose to Brian's posh pronunciation of his own surname as Ep-steen and his love of Bach).

Ian Hart plays Lennon, whom you might recognise as the private detective from The End of the Affair (1999) or as Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). Having been born in Liverpool and grown up there, Hart has a strong accent for the role (almost too strong: The Beatles famously exaggerated their Liverpudlian accents, especially when attempting to conquer the States). However, he is two inches shorter than Lennon was, which hampers his credibility in the role a bit. It's also possible that he plays Lennon too youthfully, although that might be more a fault of the script (Lennon comes across as less ambitious and more of a wanderer than he seemed to be aged 22/23 on the cusp of Beatlemania). Brian Epstein is portrayed very well. David Angus - who did not stay in the world of filmmaking and apparently now works and lives as a drama teacher and radio performer in Somerset - masters Epstein's impeccable vowels, his debonaire presence and his doe-eyed devotion to the young Lennon. His portrayal embodies the film's rather wistful title, taken from one of Shakespeare's sonnets: "Being your slave what should I do but tend / Upon the hours and times of your desire?" (Sonnet 57).

There are some scenes which fail to convince, particularly the one with the hotel bellboy who sits there, bizarrely saying nothing, as Epstein talks to him and briefly tries to seduce him. Also the ending is probably too abrupt. But in spite of that, I don't think that the film deserved the negative reviews it received (mostly in the US). Most of them seem to be rooted in an expectation that anything connected to the beloved Beatles should be high-budget and epic in structure; low-budget portrayals are somehow seen as instrinsically insulting to them. Enjoy it for what it is!

P.S. Don't miss the ten-minute featurette: director Christopher Munch talks about shooting the film, doing the casting and shows some behind-the scene stills.

Also recommended>
Ray Coleman, Brian Epstein: The Man Who Made The Beatles (1989) - a biography

The Hours & The Times is the only decent fictional Beatles film to be made thus far- Ian Hart is wonderful as Lennon, a role he would repeat in the very-average Backbeat (1994). Compare this film, which errs towards art cinema and fits somewhere between Prick Up Your Ears & the Albert Goldman book (I know that's reviled by Lennon followers, but it can't all be fiction, can it?). The Sixty-Minute feature is generally in the speculative biopic mode, and looks at at holiday in Spain that Lennon spent with manager Brian Epstein. It looks at notions of sexuality and class, which in this period led towards the experimentation and more controversial Lennon (such as the LSD experiments, the sub-Stockhausen/Cage experiments in sound, the heroin addiction, Bag-ism, Cold Turkey, giving the OBE back, protesting at the Vietnam War etc). Essentially a farce revolving around Epstein's (David Angus) attempt to bed Lennon or a hotel bellboy, it takes in a period when the working-class (well, Lennon was kind of working class- despite going to grammar school & living in relative comfort with his aunt & going to art college) rubbed shoulders with the middle-class (Epstein was a Jewish Businessman, with society aspirations- not someone who you would assume is very rock&roll).

The Hours & The Times may be only an hour long, but I think it's the best Beatles-related film that isn't a docu so far & it's as fictional as 1995's revisionist self-history Anthology. Proof that low budget cinema can also be great, and that it is possible to make a decent Beatles film (rather than risible TV movies like The Linda McCartney Story, the Lennon one with Barry from Brookside, the patchy Backbeat etc). Not unrelated to what Oliver Stone did with The Doors, in a way; warning!- pious Beatles/Lennon fans who have him down as the messiah might be offended by this film. He was just a bloke though...

I probably would have given this a four, if it hadn't been for the generally poor standard of Beatles' post-60s product. To not give it a five, especially when compared to its immediate competition, seems churlish.

I'm surprised someone thought that this film was lacking in atmosphere, as it's got an abundance of the stuff in its short running time.
This is, mercifully, a warts 'n' all depiction of Lennon/The Beatles and, like the most successful post-'Let It Be' record released under the group's name ('Live at the BBC'), this approach is much, much more preferable to the airbrushed one we are too often given ('Anthology', 'Let It Be.....Naked', 'Love' and, though not terrible films, 'Backbeat' and 'Nowhere Boy').

The reason 'Hours and Times' works is that apart from knowing they went to Spain together, and that their personal and working relationship apparently didn't suffer as a consequence, this is actually ALL WE DO KNOW. Future film-makers should bear this in mind when tackling The Beatles as a subject.

As for the film itself, it is clear that the harder role to get right is the deeply complex Epstein and not Lennon, who isn't half as complex as many would have you believe. I don't mean that as a criticism of Lennon, I much prefer the hard edged Rocker of the 50s/early 60s to the boring, saintly 'Imagine' image he is often given.

The stand out scene by a huge margin is the fabulous 'dance' scene with the air-stewardess.
This three or four minutes could have been a film all of its own, and it's almost a tragedy when the picture fades and the film returns to the Lennon/Epstein axis.