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‘The Kid’: Paul McCartney talks about George Harrison
09.29.2011
03:32 pm
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DM pal Michael Simmons wrote the new MOJO cover story on George Harrison and they’ve posted his great new interview with Paul McCartney on the MOJO blog. Even hardcore Beatlemaniacs might find something new here:

MOJO: Years ago, John [Lennon] was quoted as saying that George was ‘the kid’ when the Beatles began and that John treated George as such. How long did that last?

PAUL: It probably lasted a couple of years. Just because of his age, in a group of men who’ve grown up together, particularly round about their teenage years - age matters. In John’s case, who was three years older than George - that meant a lot. John was probably a bit embarrassed at having sort of ‘a young kid’ around, just ‘cos that happens in a bunch of guys. It lasted for a little while. It was particularly noticeable when George got deported from Hamburg [in November 1960] for being underage. Otherwise, when he first joined the group, he was a very fresh-faced looking kid. I remember introducing him to John and thinking, Wow, there’s a little bit of an age difference. It wasn’t so much for me ‘cos I was kind of in the middle. But as we grew up it ceased to make a difference. And those kind of differences iron themselves out.

MOJO: I’m curious about George’s process in the studio. Do you recall any stand-out moments where George brought something in or made a song click?

PAUL: Oh yeah, sure. There were quite a few. I would think immediately of my song “And I Love Her” which I brought in pretty much as a finished song. But George put on do-do-do-do [sings the signature riff] which is very much a part of the song. Y’know, the opening riff. That, to me, made a stunning difference to the song and whenever I play the song now, I remember the moment George came up with it. That song would not be the same without it.

I think a lot of his solos were very distinctive and made the records. He didn’t sound like any other guitarist. The very early days we were really kids and we didn’t think at all professionally. We were just kids being led through this amazing wonderland of the music business. We didn’t know how it went at all - a fact that I’m kind of glad of ‘cos I think it meant that we made it up. So we ended up making things up that people then would later emulate rather than us emulating stuff that we’d been told.

In the very early days, it was pretty exciting. I remember going to auditions at Decca and each of us did pretty well, y’know. We were in a pub afterwards having a drink and kind of debriefing and coming down off the excitement, but we were still pretty high off it all. And I remember sitting at the bar with George and it became kind of a fun thing for us for years later. I would say, [adopts awed voice] When you sang [Goffin & King’s] “Take Good Care Of My Baby,” it was amazin’ man!’ I’m not sure we said ‘man’ or even ‘amazing’ in those days, but… That was a special little moment and it just became a thing between me and him: [awed voice again] ‘When you sang Take Good Care Of My Baby’...’

Part 2 is here. Below, the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming documentary George Harrison: Living In The Material World, out next month.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.29.2011
03:32 pm
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Trailer for the upcoming George Harrison doc by Scorsese
08.23.2011
11:00 am
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Really looking forward to this one !
 

 
Thanks Alex Graham !

 

Posted by Brad Laner
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08.23.2011
11:00 am
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Director cameos in their own and others’ films
05.14.2011
05:39 pm
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Alfred Hitchcock made a habit of appearing in his own films, it became such a distraction that the great director ensured his trade-mark profile appeared soon after the opening titles, so audiences could concentrate on the intricacies of the plot rather than play Where’s Alfie?.

Over the years, other directors have adopted the Hitchcockian cameo (M Night Shyamalan being the most irritating), or turned it into a memorable scene - Martin Scorsese’s creepy cameo as a cuckolded husband in Taxi Driver is a small film all of its own. There have also been the directors who give cameos to the film-makers who influenced or inspired their careers - Jean-Luc Goddard’s homage to the genius Sam Fuller in Pierre le Fou, where the legendary director of The Steel Helmet, Underworld USA, The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor expounds on cinema:

“Film is like a battleground. Love. Hate. Action. Violence. Death. In one word . . . emotion.”

Here is just a small selection of some notable cameos by directors in their own and in other director’s films.
 

Legendary director Sam Fuller appears in this party scene from Jean-Luc Goddard’s ‘Pierrot le Fou’ (1965)
 
More directors in front of the camera, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.14.2011
05:39 pm
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If Woody Allen had made ‘Taxi Driver’
03.13.2011
08:05 am
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Woody Allen’s dialog from Hannah and Her Sisters almost fits perfectly into this scene from Taxi Driver, with Robert De Niro and Cybill Shepherd. It works so well that it even presages what we know happens in Martin Scorsese’s film

“A week ago I bought a rifle. If I had a tumor, I was gonna kill myself. The thing that might’ve stopped me: My parents would be devastated. I would’ve had to shoot them also.
And my aunt and uncle….It would have been a bloodbath…

...I need answers. Otherwise, I’m gonna do something drastic.”

Now if only the Three Stooges had made Goodfellas.
 

 
Previously on DM:

James Coco: Overt hostility disguised as comedy disguised as overt hostility


 
Bonus clip, Rick Moranis spoofs Dick Cavett and Woody Allen in ‘Taxi Driver’, after the jump..
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.13.2011
08:05 am
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