TOKYO — Beatles fans have hailed the release
of never-before-seen footage showing the Fab Four on tour in Japan, following a
fierce court battle over the 35-minute video.
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The silent
black-and-white footage of the British band’s only visit to the country in 1966
was recorded by police as a security measure.
It shows the musicians descending from a plane in
matching kimonos and performing to a rapturous crowd at the Budokan arena in
Tokyo, as well as behind-the-scenes police operations.
The footage has a noticeable quirk, however: the
faces of everyone except the Beatles — from crying admirers to officers facing
off with right-wingers protesting the tour — have been pixelated for privacy
reasons.
This had been a key sticking point for fans and
freedom-of-information advocates, who fought a long and winding battle
demanding that the footage remain uncensored.
They took their case all the way to Japan’s Supreme
Court, arguing that the video was a “historical document” and pleading for
authorities to simply let it be.
However, the top court rejected the case in 2018,
and the footage was released late last month after four painstaking years of
pixelation work, said Satoshi Shinkai, head of the civic group that fought the
legal battle with authorities.
“The film has come to light for the first time ever.
... I’m sure Beatles scholars and fans across the world will pay close
attention to it,” Shinkai, himself a Beatles fan, told AFP on Monday.
The Beatles remain hugely popular in Japan but
toured the country only once, playing five concerts, and were trailed by
legions of screaming fans.
Police provided the heavily edited clips to
Shinkai’s group, which campaigns for freer information disclosure and has
posted the footage publicly on YouTube.
The group had argued that it was almost impossible
to identify people in the footage more than 50 years on.
The face pixelation points to Japan’s “backwards
mindset” regarding information disclosure and its “hidebound views on culture”,
said Shinkai, who is also a lawyer.
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