“Yesterday”, the film by Danny Boyle released in 2019, immerses us in a world where the Beatles would not have existed but in which an unsuccessful singer miraculously interprets their songs to an audience who does not know them. And – spoiler alert – Yesterday, Let It Be, Hey Jude – sorry Hey Dude – or Love Me Do instantly make him a global star in the age of social media. A clever screenplay sleight of hand: because if the audience in the film ignores the Beatles songs, we, the film audience, have been bathed in them for decades in a Beatlemania that seems eternal.
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“Yesterday”, the film by Danny Boyle released in 2019, immerses us in a world where the Beatles would not have existed but in which an unsuccessful singer miraculously interprets their songs to an audience who does not know them. And – spoiler alert – Yesterday, Let It Be, Hey Jude – sorry Hey Dude – or Love Me Do instantly make him a global star in the age of social media. A clever screenplay sleight of hand: because if the audience in the film ignores the Beatles songs, we, the film audience, have been bathed in them for decades in a Beatlemania that seems eternal. Cass R. Sunstein, author and professor at Harvard, precisely analyzes the springs of this Beatlemania in a study available on the internet. And through this paroxysmal phenomenon, he tries to understand why some artists are successful and others are not. Is there a formula for success? Huge question. For him, “Yesterday” translates well the idea quite commonly shared according to which the success of the Beatles was in any case inevitable. Whatever the latitude or the time, their genius would have ended up springing up in the face of the world. More broadly, according to him, this reflects the assumption that a song (film or book) is successful because it is of superior quality to others. Now, Sunstein wonders: but if artistic superiority necessarily induces success, how is it that prediction in the field is so difficult? Why do the greatest experts – critics, producers or publishers… – so often get the fate of a song, a book or a film wrong? And to recall in passing that the Beatles themselves had been refused by the Decca record company (“this group has no potential!”) and that even George Martin, their producer and future fifth Beatle, was not particularly initially convinced of the potential of the Fab Four. This is why faced with this essentialist approach, others put forward exogenous keys to explanation, linked to a social dynamic almost independently of the intrinsic quality of the song (film or book). In particular via three mechanisms, more or less related, which are the “informational cascades”, namely the trigger effect of the first opinions; the “network effect”, i.e. the mass effect; and “group polarization”, i.e. the social dynamics of fans. Thus, it is legitimate he remarks – even if it is perfectly absurd – to wonder if the Beatles would have become what they are without their first success Love Me Do. A metaphysical question to which we will never have the answer. As much as the explanation by genius sins by its excess of romanticism, so much that by the social effect does it by excess of cynicism. Because if these social mechanisms are indeed constitutive of each success, they do not generate it in themselves. Promotional efforts have never guaranteed success. And there must be a primary cause in the work or the artist for social influence, namely success, to operate. Finally, it is perhaps Sir Paul McCartneyhimself who best explains the mysterious intertwining of the two creative and social dimensions at the base of all success. When Stephen Colbert, in The Late Show, asks him why, in his opinion, some become McCartney and others don’t, he replies that he was lucky to be born into a musical family that nurtured his musical culture with very musical currents. various to produce things in tune with the times. Then, he strikes a short pose, and adds with a curling eye: “With a little bonus: I’m a genius”.
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