Abbie Klein
It goes without saying that Taylor Swift is currently one of the most influential celebrities. It’s been almost a year since she announced the record breaking Eras Tour, a three and a half hour long show with 146 dates across five different continents. Now fans of the infamous singer can re-experience the night from the comfort of their own home with the new film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.”
The film, directed by Sam Wench, was recorded at the first night of the Los Angeles dates at Sofi Stadium on Aug. 3. After cuts, the movie runs for two hours and 48 minutes. It takes fans across each era starting from “Lover.” then to “Fearless,” “evermore.” “reputation,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” “folklore,” “1989” and finishing with Swift’s newest album “Midnights.”
The screen opened with the same visual that opened the concert, a clock counting down from Swift’s iconic number 13. After the countdown, the anticipation of Swift’s entrance is built up with the tour intro that layers the names of all the different eras over the lyric “it’s been a long time coming” from “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.” From there Swift immediately begins her hit song “Cruel Summer” parading around the stage in a gorgeous pink and blue Versace bodysuit. The “Lover” era continues with “The Man,” “You Need to Calm Down,” and “Lover,” before transitioning into the “Fearless” era.
“Fearless” was definitely one of the crowd’s favorite parts of the show as fans sang along to award winning songs “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story” as if they were at the real concert.
Swift opens the “evermore” era with a haunting performance of “willow.” The camera men have so far done an excellent job of keeping Swift and her dancers in focus, and capturing her in detail that no phone camera would have been capable of.
“Evermore” continues on with a beautiful rendition of “marjorie” which is about Swift’s grandmother who passed away in 2003. The film captures tears falling from Swift’s face while fans fill Sofi Stadium with their phone flashlights in respect for her grandmother.
The set continues on with “reputation,” “Speak Now,” “Red” and “folklore” with multiple different angles of Swift and her dancers in order to see the full effect of every aspect on the stage. The lighting and images on the screen changes with each song and adds for a totally different show depending on where you are viewing it from. The different close up and far shots immerse the viewer in the stadium experience.
The “1989” set was super exciting due to the anticipation of “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” set to release later this month on Oct. 27.
The performances of “Style,” “Blank Space,” “Shake it Off” and “Bad Blood” harnessed the fun, coming of age themes the album holds and was a party for longtime fans of Swift.
The next part of the show was the acoustic set that featured another intimate moment between Swift and her fans. Each night two songs that weren’t on the setlist were randomly chosen to be performed with only Swift’s vocals and her guitar or piano.
The songs chosen for the recording of the film were “Our Song” from Swift’s self-titled debut album and a beautiful rendition of “You’re on Your Own Kid” on the piano.
The show finished with seven songs from her newest album “Midnights.” “Midnights” is definitely one of Swift’s most diverse works containing fun pop songs like “Bejeweled” and more mature tracks like “Vigilante Sh*t” in which Swift and her dancers performed on chairs. This part of the set did a wonderful job showcasing the diversity of the different tracks starting with “Lavender Haze” and ending with “Karma.”
The film did a great job of capturing the best moments of the concert in an up close view that would have otherwise never been possible to see. However, some of the editing in the transitions I found to be tacky. In between each era the film had done things like edit red balloons floating up from the crowd or a wave splashing over the screen to mark the beginning of a new era. I found this to be incredibly cheap looking and it took away from the idea of being at the actual show.
Of course, there was also the fact that the film cut 5 songs from the original concert including the award winning “cardigan” but the cuts were seamless, and unless the viewer had been to the real show you would have never known.
The film was of course made for Swift’s fans and she made that obvious by displaying the message “Thank you to the most generous, thoughtful, loving fans on the planet. This is all because of you and for you” at the end of the credits.
Even though the editing was bad at times and some songs were cut, any fan of Swift’s will have an amazing time getting to sing and dance to their favorite song with Taylor Swift on the big screen.