Backbeat

Backbeat (1994) is Iain Softley's music drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. It tells the story of Stuart Sutcliffe — a name only the most devoted fans of the Liverpool band would recognize. He was their first bass player and John Lennon's closest friend.

Most of it plays out in the early sixties, when a still-unknown group hammered through nights in the smoky clubs of Hamburg. Stuart didn't dream of the stage; he wanted a canvas. Painting was his real calling, and he held the bass mostly out of loyalty. Everything shifts when he meets German photographer Astrid Kirchherr — falling for her pulls Stu away from the band and from Lennon, who refuses to let his friend go. This is a film about the brief stretch before the Beatles became the Beatles.

Stephen Dorff takes the part of Sutcliffe, Ian Hart plays Lennon for the second time in his career, and Sheryl Lee is the Astrid who gave the boys their famous mop-top look. The soundtrack is the raw rock-and-roll set list of their Hamburg years, re-cut by a band of American musicians. What grips you is the angle — the loser's view: a young man who walked away from the biggest group on earth a year before fame and died at twenty-one. Stream Backbeat (1994) online on iFILM.