Rattle and Hum Outtakes and Other Videos

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2020-03-21)

Phil Joanou, an American filmmaker, has worked extensively with U2 throughout their career. It was Joanou that directed U2’s Rattle and Hum and later featured U2 in his own film, Entropy. He also worked with U2 on videos for “One,” “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,” “If God Will Send His Angels,” “Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own” and “All Because of You.”

Over the past few months, Joanou has been sharing some high definition versions of his work through Vimeo. It isn’t just his work with U2 that he is sharing there, but other clips from film and commercials that he has done over the years have also been included. But there are a number of interesting U2 videos there to be viewed as well. We’re sharing these below.

Some of the material for Rattle and Hum is listed as new mastered versions of footage. But he has uploaded these clips before, first five years ago, and more recently in 2018. The clips uploaded over the last three months are the highest quality versions of these videos that we have seen.

The Unreleased Rattle and Hum

A number of the songs were filmed for Rattle and Hum but not used in the film. We’ve embedded those that Joanou has uploaded below. You can watch them directly below, or you can follow the links below them to watch them on Vimeo direct.


The Unforgettable Fire (Black and White) from Phil Joanou on Vimeo.


Spanish Eyes (Black and White) from Phil Joanou on Vimeo.


Trip Through Your Wires (Black and White) from Phil Joanou on Vimeo.


Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (Color) from Phil Joanou on Vimeo.


One Tree Hill (Color) from Phil Joanou on Vimeo.


Mothers of the Disappeared (Color) from Phil Joanou on Vimeo.


“40” (Color) from Phil Joanou on Vimeo.

Other Songs from Rattle and Hum

Not only does Joanou have the above videos that didn’t make it into Rattle and Hum he has also uploaded videos that do appear in the final film. Many of these are in high quality. We’ll link these below for those who wish to view them.

Additional Material from Rattle and Hum

Also uploaded by Joanou are two versions of the trailer for the film, the shorter teaser trailer that runs a minute and a half, and a longer full length trailer, which runs two and a half minutes. Also posted is a 24 minute “Making of” featurette for the film, Rattle and Hum which includes interviews and clips from the film.

Videos Directed for U2 by Phil Joanou

If you dig a little deeper into Vimeo you can find a number of videos that Joanou has directed for U2. These are of varying quality but a number have been posted recently at high resolution. We’ve sorted them by year below.

And finally if you really have some time to kill, you may want to check out Joanou’s full length movie, Entropy which features Bono and Larry Mullen playing themselves in the film, as well as footage shot at U2’s 1998 PopMart Concert in Johannesburg. Portions of the film were filmed while that concert and the soundcheck was happening, and can be seen in the film.

In 1999 we had the opportunity to attend a screening of Rattle and Hum at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles where Joanou attended and addressed the crowd. At the time he told the crowd that over a million and a half feet of film had been filmed for the movie, and that along the way there were 8 versions of the movie prior to the final edit that was released. There was also a plan in place to release some outtakes of the movie for fans, along with additional music, shortly after the release of the film. These plans were scrapped when the reviews started coming in with criticism of the film, and the band worried the whole project was overhyped. The band chose to put these plans for a fan release on the back burner and to date they remain unreleased. One of these unreleased versions included “I Will Follow” and another had been cut together as a 12-song bootleg. Joanou mentioned he was aware that the bootleg “Outtakes” videos were floating around but he himself had never seen them. Our full report of that screening with Joanou appears here.

Some of the material shared above was featured in the “Outtakes” video that once circulated among fan in VHS and later digitally. A deluxe version of Rattle and Hum continues to be something that fans ask for frequently. Currently the film is out of print, even on high definition formats such as BluRay, although it has been released in that format. The album as well, remains one of the items not yet reissued on vinyl in the current reissue program. However, a new remaster of the soundtrack album was released through iTunes as part of the MFiT program.

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