Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #132: Backbeat (1994).

Before the Beatles conquered the world like no other band before or since, the Fab Four were the Quarrymen and they were really five. Original bass guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe, John Lennon's best friend at school, played with them at the Cavern Club in Liverpool but his first love was visual art. He had tensions with Paul McCartney but before they could cost him dearly, he died of a brain haemorrhage in 1962, aged just 21. The 1994 movie Backbeat beautifully explores his relationship with fellow artist Astrid Kircherr in Liverpool and Hamburg, and the role he played in the biggest group in music history.

Right from the first frames, Backbeat is naturally crammed with rock and roll and its English predecessor skiffle (you'll hear songs from Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Eddie Cochran and Little Richard among others), and debut director Iain Softley's affection for those genres and the era from whence they came permeates every scene infectiously. He co-wrote the screenplay with Stephen Ward and their treatment of their heroes, however, is far from sugarcoated. Softley and Ward aren't afraid to show them warts-and-all; they're obscene, hard-living and frequently volatile with each other in true rock fashion. Also absent here are the common knowing biopic references (i.e. a teenage Lennon in 2009's Nowhere Boy walking past a house named Strawberry Field) which are amusing only to a point. Softley's visualisation feels authentically grimy yet vibrant because it conveys the sense of escape which contemporary music offered postwar English youth, and he approaches the performance scenes with sincere vigour. Most importantly, though, Softley and his cast all approach these characters with real patience and objectivity; even Paul McCartney himself, despite criticising the film overall, called Stephen Dorff's portrayal of Sutcliffe "astonishing." (However, Pete Best, Julian Lennon, Sutcliffe's sister Pauline and the real Kircherr have all praised it.) Now, I wouldn't praise it quite that highly, but Dorff is nonetheless convincing. Ian Hart and Sheryl provide worthwhile support respectively as John and Astrid.

Stuart Sutcliffe may have been cruelly denied unprecedented fame and fortune, but not immortality. Backbeat has helped to give him that, and it does him and his place in the Beatles's history absolute justice.