The document provides analysis of the 1964 film A Hard Day's Night and the Beatles' song "Can't Buy Me Love" featured in it. It describes how the film uses a mock documentary style to portray a couple days in the lives of the Beatles. It analyzes how the song and its music video represent the Beatles escaping from confinement and conforming to find freedom in an open field, representing the generation gap of the 1960s. The quick cuts and energetic shots in the music video enhance the feelings of youth, freedom and fun.

1. “Can’t Buy Me Love” Courtenay Argyle

3. In the Beatles’ first movie, “A Hard Day’s Night”, they include various songs to help aid the narrative as the film’s intention is to help to promote the Beatles and their music rather than create a film of another nature.

6. This song, agrees with this theory and it uses binary oppositions as it represents the separation of the elders, who looked down at the “loud racket”, and the youngsters, who screamed out at them to help them escape from their formally compressed and boring lives.

7. The outside, in the field contrasts or opposes the inside of the dressing room where they are trapped and caged in.

9. The Shots & Editing The film begins in a MS of the boys “escaping” excitably out of the fire exit roughly half an hour before they are supposed to perform. The music begins as soon as Ringo gleefully shouts “WE’RE OUT!” and they begin to run down the spiralling staircase in a low angle shot, perhaps showing the spiralling fun and twisting journey they lead their fans on throughout their career. This is followed by a montage of medium and close up images of the staircase itself and their faces as they descend down it. You are shown their feet running down the steps in a CU moving shot to create rhythm, movement and a sense of energy as the music flows into an upbeat tune. The quick cuts here also aid the sense of excitement and freedom; youth is represented by the speed of their movements created by the speed of the cuts of the shots themselves. The camera switches in to an over head, aerial shot of them, still playing, taken from a helicopter or plane angle. The movement is almost as carefree as the lads themselves, it shakes slightly and rather than seem wrong, it only adds to the films narrative and meaning of letting go to the normal and official way of doing things. You would not expect to see such huge stars running around in a field, half an hour before they were to perform to thousands of fans… that is just what who the Beatles were; they did what they wanted and they wanted to be free.

10. The Lyrics & Their Meaning The lyrics themselves reflect their care-free attitude about life and money “I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love”. Their message is both about money and love, they tell their fans to forget such superficial objects such as money, “Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can't buy” and to share and love “I may not have a lot to give but what I got I'll give to you” without worrying about being better than another person or about superficial things you own.