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4.0 out of 5 stars
Beatles tunes in I am Sam: An Excellent Choice, Jul 5 2004
In looking over the reviews for this album, I noticed that many of the reviews focus on the quality of the Beatles covers presented therein. This seems to me an errant methodology regardless of how one rates the covers."I Am Sam" is not a movie about the Beatles, it is a movie that's primary focus is on whether a mentally impaired man is able to raise his daughter. It is a movie filled with a range of emotions. I have seen the movie and listened to the soundtrack on cd on several occasions. Each time the music greatly enhanced my experience of the narrative of "I Am Sam." The soundtrack for "I Am Sam," in my opinion should be judged by how the songs fit into the movie and not by how the songs compare to the Beatles orginal renderings. Therein lies the risk in using covers of songs in movies rather than original works or at least the original renderings of established recordings. Especially in doing covers of such acessible artists as the Beatles (in this case) or Elvis Presley (Honeymoon in Vegas). I think however that the choice to use Beatles Songs as the soundtrack of I Am Sam was to borrower from the film's protagonist: "An Excellent Choice". The Beatles in many ways are a road map for the main character. He is able to relate the history of the band to most every aspect of his life. It feels very natural and real to have the songs of the Beatles perform as a raod map of sorts for the film. I found the selection of the songs and their placing in the film to be extremely evocative. The Wallflowers' rendition of "I'm looking through you" for example captures the idea that Lucy is noticing for the first time the limitations of her father's intellect and ability to deal with the outside world. Both Rufus Wainwright in "Across the Universe" and Eddie Vedder with "You've got to hide your love away" convey the brooding emotions of a family in turmoil. To judge the quality of the music in "I Am Sam" simply by the measure of the Beatles covers would be very similar to judging Sam's ability to effectively father Lucy by the measure of his I.Q. I believe the film clearly shows that either of these judgements would be a grave mistake.
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