Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
The cultural icon gives her fans what they crave – with knobs on.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is more than a concert movie. It is more than an event. It is a phenomenon. A gift both to the millions of the singer’s adoring fans and to Taylor Swift’s bank account, it is a film that has broken all the rules. While adhering to strict union guidelines, it managed to be produced, released and promoted in the midst of the SAG-AFTRA strike, receiving “special approval.” On top of that, the film’s producer (Taylor Swift) had the ticket prices doubled and any concessions rendered null and void (such as staff comps, loyalty club cards, critics’ freebies, etc), keeping it in line with the astronomical cost of attending a Taylor Swift concert (at least, in spirit). In spite of such economical hindrances (or because of), the film grossed an unprecedented $100 million in advance ticket sales. And if that wasn’t already a display of bare-faced chutzpah, Swift negotiated a deal in which she bypassed the major studios to distribute the film on her own terms with the cinema chains, cutting the theatres a 43% share of the box-office revenue. Single-handedly, the singer has changed what is possible in cinema distribution and who gets what in the profit allocation. For the multiplex, it has been an unexpected dividend, much needed in light of the box-office downturn since Barbenheimer. For Taylor Swift, it is El Dorado.
Not bad for a one-woman show.
On screen, that one-woman show unspools at the massive SoFi Stadium in California, with a seating capacity of 70,240 and which, in August of this year (just two months ago), sold out for all six shows (scalped tickets in the UK were going for £3,352 each). Covering 44 hit tunes from all ten of her studio albums – each one defining an ‘era’ – the concert elevates pop culture to a whole new level.
To see Taylor Swift standing alone on that stage surrounded by so many thousands of well-wishers – with their glowing bracelets and mobile phones – is a momentous sight. She is like one small planet in the midst of a vast shimmering galaxy. And then she sings. Well, she doesn’t so much sing as act out the emotions of her highly personal numbers, strutting across the stage with the stamina of a Marvel superheroine. She dances. She plays the guitar (several). She plays a giant piano coated in moss. She hugs and kisses a little girl in the audience and places a hat on the child’s head. She appears out of nowhere in a variety of markedly striking costumes. She holds the audience in the palm of her hand and in the twinkle of her smile. It is a private, entre nous conversation between her and her faithful – all 70,240 of them. We see them in awe, in tears, in exaltation. And, in the packed cinema I attended, the singing and applause mirrored the on-screen adulation. It was about as close as audience participation can get. Taylor Swift, it seemed, was there in person.
Besides being a savvy businesswoman – and a talented singer and songwriter – Taylor Swift is an entertainer, the P.T. Barnum of the love ballad. She also knows what makes her look good and The Eras Tour is more than just a concert: it is a vast machine of moving parts. There is a giant stage that changes shape and elevation, a massive screen that magnifies its subject (before resorting to more surreal imaginings) and all the light effects, dancers, backing musicians and stagecraft one might not have anticipated. But it is Taylor Swift herself, and all that energy, and all those earwormy melodies, that will send her fans away ecstatic: happy that they had saved up all their pocket money.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Featuring Taylor Swift.
Dir Sam Wrench, Pro Taylor Swift, Ph Brett Turnbull, Ed Dom Whitworth, Music Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift Productions-Trafalgar Releasing.
168 mins. USA. 2023. US Rel: 12 October 2023. UK Rel: 13 October 2023. Cert. 12A.
