 | Tony Palmer''s landmark Brit Tv series ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE |
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Itis series tell the story of 20th century popular music in 17 distanctive films:
the introductory film
3 films about popular music: Vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley and Musicals
Tony Palmer examines Ragtime, Jazz and Swing
He busts numerous myths and incovers the true origins of blues, R&B, and Rock''''Roll in three more films
Tony Palmer digsinto the African roots of popular music and Rock''n''Roll in this provocative film
In 3 films he explores the inter-connected musical horizonts of Country, Folk and Prod-Rock.
3 dynamic films celebrating the Beatles, 60s Rock and 70s Rock respective
''All You Need Is Love'' tells the story of pop music
When British filmmaker Tony Palmer was visiting New York City during the early 70s, he was pleased to run into an old friend from back home one afternoon John Lennon. After their initial greetings, Lennon asked Palmer what hed been up to in a typically pointed fashion.
I can hear him as if it was today, Palmer recalls. He giggled, and then he pointed his finger at me and said, Are you doing anything useful? Minding my own business! I think I replied. And later, over rather too much brown rice, he said what was really needed was a film which put the whole saga [of music] into some sort of social and historical perspective, so that we could really understand where rock n roll had come from. And so, what began as a rather foolhardy idea eventually became All You Need Is Love.
I think John hoped that if I did the series, people would see that rock n roll had made an extremely important contribution to the social history of our times, says Palmer. That was certainly an ambition of his, and it became an ambition of mine. And I dont want to take too much credit for it, but it was the first long series to do that.
Ultimately, the series is weighed toward rock music, with five episodes devoted to the genre. And of all the artists profiled, The Beatles are the only group to have an entire episode devoted to them, marking the first time there had been an overview documentary on the group (the 1964 Maysles brothers film, Whats Happening! The Beatles In America, focused on the groups first U.S. trip).
Some sequences clearly influenced Eric Idles Beatles parody film All You Need Is Cash, about the pre-fab Four, The Rutles. Eric Idle, he owes me money, Palmer jokes. That was another thing that finally provoked us into getting the series out on DVD. Or, to cite another example, the interview in that episode with Mrs. Epstein, that was the only time she ever ever talked about her son, Brian [the Beatles manager]. And if you look on the Brian Epstein official website, youll see the interview there which I dont remember anybody asking permission to use. Now, I dont care about that kind of thing; Im all for the instant dissemination of all knowledge. But it did become increasingly annoying that I kept seeing bits of the series and bootleg copies appearing everywhere; I just thought, this is it!
Though Palmer had been a music critic for The Observer, writing reviews of practically everybody you ever heard of, working on the series proved to be as much a learning experience for him as for the audience.
I was going to say that what surprised me was how extraordinary these musicians as musicians were, he says. But that wouldnt be true, because I already kind of knew it, or I suspected it. But to be inches away from B.B. King while he was going hell for leather was awe-inspiring. Because nobody had filmed him that up close before. I felt also that the social conscience that these people had was, again, awe-inspiring. The two days that we spent with Pete Seeger I will never forget in my life. The difficulties he had been through of being spat at for his quasi-Communist sympathies, and therefore being yanked off the air and forbidden to perform in public and this is a white guy! This isnt even a black guy. To think of the problems he had and yet he was still going at it. Its incredibly inspiring.
And its awe-inspiring and humbling the extent to which these musicians from the very beginning clearly wanted to say something about the world in which they lived, Palmer continues. And theyd chosen to say it in a medium that was not taken seriously, that was derided as just being sex, drugs and rock n roll and therefore incapable of coherent joined-up social conscience. That was what hit me very hard, repeatedly. And I felt this is something which has to be celebrated, has to be made extremely clear, and I have to just brazen it out with the television executives and just tell them theyre going to get some nice little films about this harmless popular music. They got a hell of a shock when I delivered it!
Palmer lets the story unfold slowly, letting the interviewees do most of the talking. Nor was he afraid to court controversy; an episode on protest songs included an IRA song, which caused some concern. But to their credit, ITV not only accepted the series as is, they even made it longer, suggesting that Palmer add an introductory episode to explain the breadth of the series to the audience.
Palmer initially resisted, But they said, No, no, no, youve got to trust this, he says. Because it will grab the audience, and theyll stay with it. And, in fact, thats exactly what happened. It did grab the audience, and they hung on through all the episodes, because they knew that any minute they were going to get Paul McCartney. Though in fact Paul McCartney didnt come on until considerably after the first episode!
But in the U.S., WNET, who picked up the series for the PBS network, werent so generous, and asked Palmer to edit the series down.
And they were absolutely shocked when I said, No, Im not going to change these films, Palmer recalls. You dont want to show the films thats your prerogative. But Im not going water them down simply to make them nice and palatable for people like you. My attitude was go stuff yourselves, basically.
In the end, WNET only showed select episodes. I think they showed about half of it, says Palmer. They showed the nice episodes though Im not quite sure which episodes they thought were nice!
Though the series largely fell off the radar in the 80s, uncredited clips have turned up in music documentaries ever since. A tie-in book, written by Palmer, helped keep awareness of the series alive. And the rise of the Internet also brought a steady stream of requests for the series to be reissued.
I kept getting emails saying, Where can we get All You Need Is Love? Why cant we buy it on DVD? says Palmer. It was a provocative irritant, and I finally thought, Right, Im fed up with getting these e-mails, Id better try and do something about it.
Its hard to imagine such a series being created for television today; would any U.S. network allow Palmer the freedom he enjoyed 30 years ago? Not to mention that television now seems to be mired in what Palmer calls a focus group mentality.
It was possible in the mid-70s for one television executive to say, Thats a good idea. Lets do it, he says. Now there would be committees which would go on for five years, by which time Ive lost all enthusiasm and just want to get the gun and kill the buggers! It sounds like Im a geriatric complaining about the golden days, but not at all. Theres wonderful, wonderful films and programs being made now, and they get on the air. But they get on air frequently in spite of television executives rather than because of them.
The bottom line is that nobody thought this music had any read merit. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to make this series.