Dead Beat

By RICHARD CORLISS

The most pungent cultural spillage from the early death of any rock star -- of Buddy Holly or Ritchie Valens, Jim Morrison or Sid Vicious -- may be the movie made from his life. Producers paw through old press clippings, take a quick snort of the current zeitgeist, tack on a note of mythical tragedy and voila!, a tale for our time with a hit sound track guaranteed.

This is a low business, exploiting a musician's notoriety and an audience's star lust. It has reached a nadir of sorts with Backbeat, a homoerotic paean to Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff), the fifth Beatle. Or maybe the sixth, if you count pre-Ringo drummer Pete Best and leave out George Martin and Murray the K.

Stu, a budding painter and middling bassist, may seem a long shot for rock immortality. He died at 22, months before the group, which he had earlier quit, cut its first record. But according to Backbeat, Stu was the dreamboat heart of the combo and John Lennon (Ian Hart) was its soul. Paul McCartney (Gary Bakewell) and George Harrison (Chris O'Neill) only whined and purred, respectively, while Lennon and Sutcliffe did the heavy lifting. John, you see, was Liverpool's own angry young man and the sole creator of this proto-punk, ur-grunge band (don't you love revisionism?). And Stu, preening moodily, was John's closet love god -- before a brain tumor drove Stu mad and killed him, thus establishing his credentials as a rock Rimbaud.

Backbeat has an attractive cast and a passionate rock-'n'-roll score (played by some top young musicians). But with its attention to the posturings of Lennon and the untalented Stu, the movie succumbs to the post-Madonna notion that pop success is all a matter of attitude. That's so misguided. If you have any doubt, listen to the songs.