Rubber Soul

Jon Lefkovitz's 2014 film Rubber Soul recreates – very faithfully – John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1970 Rolling Stone and 1980 Playboy interviews, juxtaposing them and showing how John's thoughts on issues like drugs, fame and The Beatles changed over the intervening decade. We talk about the artistic value of recreating something exactly, and how that might play into Beatles fans' expectations and desires when seeing the band played on film by actors.

It also raises questions about the significance of the rock star interview, and John's interviews in particular. His statements in these conversations were accorded great importance, and Jann Wenner's 1970 interview in particular had a huge influence on public perceptions of Lennon and Paul McCartney for decades to come, but given John's habit of stating differing opinions from one day to the next, maybe interviews with stars shouldn't be treated with such reverence?

• Watch the film for free: https://youtu.be/kB8Z1LRBmTA
• The Rolling Stone interview: https://youtu.be/5ZhBQRzBAa8
• Jann Wenner's Lennon Remembers: https://g.co/kgs/rkV5V5
• The Playboy interviews: https://youtu.be/PRDfBGagFkU
• David Sheff's All We Are Saying: https://g.co/kgs/Qs8fR7
• Important cow facts Ed can't quite recall: John and Yoko bought a herd of Holstein dairy cows with their upstate New York farm in 1978 (where Yoko now lives full time), and raked in money from them. One cow sold for $250,000.
• William Mann's "Aeolian cadence" 1963 Beatles review for The Times: https://www.beatlesbible.com/1963/12/27/the-times-what-songs-the-beatles-sang-by-william-mann/ (which refers to Not a Second Time, not I'll Be Back)
• We mention a few other films. Gus Van Sant's 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Psycho; Locke, a Tom Hardy film that takes place entirely in one car; Buried, the Ryan Reynolds film that takes place in a coffin; Disney+ series The Bear; and the one-take horror film Matt mentions is 2011's Silent House.
• Watch Beautiful Boy, about David Sheff and his son: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/beautiful-boy

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

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