Roland Reiter: The Beatles On Film [Book/Release: March 2008]

Die Bild im Film - eine Wissenschaft für sich

Frankfurt am Main (gbip/14.05.2008) - Der österreichische Musiker Roland Reiter - Doktor Roland Reiter müssen wir eigentlich sagen - hat kürzlich ein weiteres Buch veröffentlicht: "The Beatles On Film" (wir berichteten darüber) - Eine Abhandlung über die Film- und TV-Aktivitäten der Fab Four. Das englischsprachige Werk geht auf die Dissertation Reiters zurück, welche bereits 2006 im Eigenverlag unter dem Titel "Screening the Beatles Myth" erschienen ist.

Die Geschichte der Beatles von der cineastischen Seite her aufzuarbeiten ist äußerst interessant und bietet hinreichende Erklärungen für das Außenbild wie auch für das Selbstverständnis der Band. Es gibt Filme mit den Beatles und über die Beatles. Reiter beschreibt zunächst den Inhalt der Werke bevor er ihre Bedeutung für die Band- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte darlegt. Anhand der Filme kann Reiter auch ebenfalls den Imagewandel der Band zwischen 1964 und 1966 nachweisen. Bisweilen gelingt es ihm, Mythen aufzudecken, durch die sich vor allem die Plots aus der sogenannten "Pre-Fab-Phase" auszeichnen.

"The Beatles on Film" ist zwar eine wissenschaftliche Publikation, aber Roland Reiter schreibt die Fakten keinesfalls trocken nieder. Auch Nichtwissenschafter unter den Beatles-Fans wird dieses Buch ansprechen. Die Kapitel sind inhaltlich klar strukturiert. Viele Fußnoten und Zitate machen die Fakten belegbar. Ähnlich wie Knublauch und Korinth in dem Werk "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" hätte Reiter sicher vielmehr Fakten im Text unterzubringen gewusst, als er es letztlich getan hat. Seine Sprache ist wesentlich verständlicher und sein Text zeichnet sich durch eine klare Gliederung aus. So macht Wissenschaft Spaß.

Wir verlosen ein Exemplar dieses Buches

Wir haben noch ein Exemplar dieses tollen Buches über und möchten es unter unseren Newsletterabonnenten am kommenden Sonntag, den 18. Mai 2008 verlosen. Der Rechtsweg ist ausgeschlossen.

Wer noch nicht unseren Newsletter abonniert hat, kann dies mit einer einfachen E-Mail formlos nachholen. Der Newsletterbezug kann jederzeit wieder - ebenfalls formlos - gekündigt werden.

Beatles On The Screen - Reloaded

Frankfurt/Germany (gbip/20.03.2008) - The Austrian musician Roland Reiter - we better should say Ph.D. Roland Reiter - has just released his next book: "The Beatles On Film". A scholarly piece on the movie and tv appearances of the Fab Four. This works goes back to Reiter's doctoral dissertation, which was self-published released in 2006 entitled "Screening the Beatles Myth".

"The Beatles on Film" is a slightly revised and updated Version. The new book refers to recent Beatles releases, as well some few errors are now corrected. ist eine leicht veränderte, zum Teil aktualisierte Version, das heißt es wird auf ein paar aktuellere Releases Bezug genommen und ein paar Fehler wurden korrigiert. Im Generally speaking the words are still the same.

"I'm very happy", the Author said, "that the book will now be available to bigger readership. It is still intended as a scientific publication, but I hope, even non-scientist amongst the Beatles fans will enjoy it. The typography and the layout is better than in the self-published release from 2006." The book is written in English language.

Bibliography

Roland Reiter
The Beatles on Film
Analysis of Movies, Documentaries, Spoofs and Cartoons
March 2008, 214 P., 23,80 EUR (DE)
ISBN: 978-3-89942-885-8

Roland Reiter: Screening the Beatles Myth [Book/Release: January 2006]

Movies, Documentaries, Spoofs and Cartoons

Graz (ots/25.01.2006) - From 1962 to 1970 The Beatles were the central force in various forms of popular culture, ranging from music and fashion to film and television. Although the band's musical output has been thoroughly discussed in a multitude of books, the importance of their filmic work has been largely ignored. The Beatles' movies were a vital factor in communicating the band's ever changing array of images, attitudes, ideas, and musical styles.

Screening the Beatles Myth provides the production history and a contextual interpretation of The Beatles' movies and describes their ability to project the group's image at different stages in their career. The book also includes a discussion of all of The Beatles' promotional films and videos, as well as their television cartoon series and their self-produced television special Magical Mystery Tour. Along with The Beatles' feature movies and promotional films, this analysis also contains documentaries, such as The Compleat Beatles and Anthology, as well as dramatizations of the band's history, such as Backbeat, The Hours and Times, and Two of Us.

Screening the Beatles Myth is the most comprehensive book to date about The Beatles' films and provides a fresh perspective on the band's extraordinary history. It contains material from exclusive interviews with many of The Beatles' friends and colleagues, including Astrid Kirchherr, Rod Davis, Bill Harry, Ken Brown, John Lowe, May Pang, and many others.

Further Information (Excerpt from Introduction)

Although there have been a few Beatles film books before - which were all very helpful for my own analysis, it was my aim to provide a more thoroughly researched historical background, as well as a contextual interpretation of the movies and their function as projectors of The Beatles' image at different stages in their career. In addition, Screening the Beatles Myth also includes an analysis of all of The Beatles' promotional films and videos, as well as their television cartoon series and their self-produced television special Magical Mystery Tour.

Besides The Beatles' feature movies and promotional films, the book also contains documentaries, such as Anthology and The Compleat Beatles, as well as dramatizations of the band's history, such as Backbeat, The Hours and Times, and Two of Us. It was my aim to identify the projection of certain images and to contextualize their historic meaning and significance. In addition, this analysis examines the authenticity of such portrayals and describes their contribution to the evolution of popular cultural legends and myths. The system of reference for this project consists of an extensive bulk of autobiographies, biographies, interviews and documents, with the help of which I attempted to reconstruct The Beatles' history in a comprehensive and, hopefully, fairly objective way.

To clarify conflicting information and to advance the specific aim of this dissertation I have had the great pleasure to meet and interview many contributors to The Beatles' history: Alf Bicknell (The Beatles' chauffeur), Ken Brown (The Quarry Men [1958-1959]), Howie Casey (musician from Liverpool, features on several albums by Paul McCartney), Rod Davis (The Quarry Men [1956-1957]), Horst Fascher (The Beatles' friend and bodyguard in Hamburg), Len Garry (The Quarry Men [1956-1958]), Eric Griffiths (The Quarry Men [1956-1958]), Colin Hanton (The Quarry Men [1956-1959]), Bill Harry (The Beatles' friend, editor of Mersey Beat), Astrid Kirchherr (The Beatles' friend and photographer in Hamburg), John 'Duff' Lowe (The Quarry Men [1958]), Mike McCartney, May Pang (John Lennon's assistant and partner), Paul Saltzman (Emmy-winning television producer who resided with the group in India in 1968), Klaus Voormann (Grammy-awarded designer of The Beatles' Revolver album cover), Allan Williams (The Beatles' first manager), Roy Young (musician who backed The Beatles on piano in 1962). In addition, the academic writings of Roland Barthes, Seymour Chatman, Simon Frith, Dick Hebdige, Tony Barta, John E. O'Connor, Silke Riemann, and Peter Wicke provided the framework for the contextualization of my own ideas and insights.

The Author

Roland Reiter is a 28-year-old Beatles fan from Graz, Austria. He is the associate director of the Center for Alternative Pedagogy, Coaching & Creativity in Graz. Roland has also been involved in the music business and has celebrated quite some success with Future Farmers, an Austrian indie-rock band. Screening the Beatles Myth is Roland's first international publication. He has been preparing several other publications for 2006.

Source: Roland Reiter

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Further Information

Bibliografic Information: 236 pages, English Language, 1 Picture, Publisher: Dissertation.Com

What other magazines tell about the book:

Beatlemania: "The book is however a good and the at present most current compilation for the topic of Beatles movie and feature films."

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