by guest critic Michael Clark
A pet project for filmmaker Peter Jackson for the better part of the last decade, the finished The Beatles: Get Back is almost certainly not what he had intended. The movie was supposed to be a major studio feature release in 2020 but because of a slightly inconvenient event (COVID-19) it took a different path.
Get Back is no longer a “movie” but rather a three-part, seven-plus-hour TV mini-series or, as Jackson has described it from the start – “a documentary about another documentary.” For hardcore Beatles fans, this is like manna from Heaven. You want to give them seven hours of new Beatles stuff instead of just two? Bring it on or…maybe not. For the uninitiated, the final product might end up being more of a chore than a pleasure trip.
With the noted exception of the sublime A Hard Day’s Night, every movie featuring the Beatles (or in the case of the animated Yellow Submarine – sound-alike voice actors) produced while they were still together is a waste of time. While each contains different forms and levels of “bad,” almost every Beatle fan agrees that Let it Be is the worst of the lot.
Unlike the others which at least set out to entertain with irreverent humor, Let it Be (apart from the killer Oscar-winning soundtrack/score) was a depressing slog. The only documentary of the pre-break-up flicks, it was successful on at least one point: chronicling the petty infighting of the world’s greatest rock band on their way out, or so it would seem.
It was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg who is rumored by many to be the bastard son of Orson Welles and just one look at his mug during this time lends these rumors considerable weight. Clocking in at a scant 80 minutes, the movie felt like a rush job and was released mere months after the official end of the band was announced.
With the possible exception of the band’s inner circle and Lindsay-Hogg himself, few knew there were over 50 hours of unseen footage and nearly three times that amount of audio content which were never used. With the enthusiastic support of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison this cache of raw material was turned over to Jackson and his production team in January 2019.
Employing many of the restoration techniques he used for They Shall Not Grow Old, Jackson’s now “final” cut has a running time of nearly eight hours, divided into three episodes which began streaming on Disney+ on Thanksgiving.
Jackson serves himself well by opening the production with a 10-minute, Cliff’s Notes history of the band. There’s the Beatlemania, the “We’re more popular than Jesus” out-of-context fiasco, Sgt. Pepper, and the trip to India which provided the germination for The Beatles (aka The White Album).
While adhering to the original timeline of Let it Be – the rehearsals at Twickenham Studios, recording at the newly-minted Apple Studio on Savile Row and the closing “Rooftop Show” – Jackson reuses only 20 or so minutes of the original film.
As displayed in the teaser reel released this past summer, the band got along during the month of production far better than we were led to believe in Lindsay-Hogg’s movie, particularly during the second half but this is far from a rose-colored glasses reinvention. At one point one of the members abruptly quits the band, leaving the remaining three in limbo for days. The bickering at Twickenham is expanded but in a thoroughly different, far more understanding context.
In one of the production’s most heartfelt moments, Harrison is shown giving pointers to Starr who is in the process of writing “Octopus’ Garden,” the second and final Beatle song he alone composed. This song and several more which eventually appeared on the album Abbey Road are also included in their embryonic form and represent the high-water marks of the production. Although recorded after the Let it Be album, Abbey Road was released first.
In hindsight, Get Back suffers because of the inclusion of too much repetitive material. Where Let it Be was skimpy, Get Back borders on overwrought. A handful of working songs in progress (“Don’t Let Me Down,” “Dig a Pony,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” and the title track are included a handful of times each with no noticeable differences in arrangements or renderings. Even the “Rooftop Show” is redundant. Running 42 minutes, it includes two songs played twice and the title track three times.
This same sort of content issue arose in November of 1995 with the televised release of The Beatles: Anthology and the DVD which followed. The TV version was just under six hours (spread out over three nights) and it was beyond superb. The DVD was nearly double in length and was chock full of filler. Seriously, do we really need to see a half-dozen live performances of “All My Loving?”
It’s clear that this was a labor of love for Jackson but what he intended to be the documentary equivalent of The Lord of the Rings bears a closer resemblance to The Hobbit.
The Beatles: Get Back is not rated but contains explicit language, mature themes and smoking.
Get Back is no longer a “movie” but rather a three-part, seven-plus-hour TV mini-series or, as Jackson has described it from the start – “a documentary about another documentary.” For hardcore Beatles fans, this is like manna from Heaven. You want to give them seven hours of new Beatles stuff instead of just two? Bring it on or…maybe not. For the uninitiated, the final product might end up being more of a chore than a pleasure trip.
With the noted exception of the sublime A Hard Day’s Night, every movie featuring the Beatles (or in the case of the animated Yellow Submarine – sound-alike voice actors) produced while they were still together is a waste of time. While each contains different forms and levels of “bad,” almost every Beatle fan agrees that Let it Be is the worst of the lot.
Unlike the others which at least set out to entertain with irreverent humor, Let it Be (apart from the killer Oscar-winning soundtrack/score) was a depressing slog. The only documentary of the pre-break-up flicks, it was successful on at least one point: chronicling the petty infighting of the world’s greatest rock band on their way out, or so it would seem.
It was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg who is rumored by many to be the bastard son of Orson Welles and just one look at his mug during this time lends these rumors considerable weight. Clocking in at a scant 80 minutes, the movie felt like a rush job and was released mere months after the official end of the band was announced.
With the possible exception of the band’s inner circle and Lindsay-Hogg himself, few knew there were over 50 hours of unseen footage and nearly three times that amount of audio content which were never used. With the enthusiastic support of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison this cache of raw material was turned over to Jackson and his production team in January 2019.
Employing many of the restoration techniques he used for They Shall Not Grow Old, Jackson’s now “final” cut has a running time of nearly eight hours, divided into three episodes which began streaming on Disney+ on Thanksgiving.
Jackson serves himself well by opening the production with a 10-minute, Cliff’s Notes history of the band. There’s the Beatlemania, the “We’re more popular than Jesus” out-of-context fiasco, Sgt. Pepper, and the trip to India which provided the germination for The Beatles (aka The White Album).
While adhering to the original timeline of Let it Be – the rehearsals at Twickenham Studios, recording at the newly-minted Apple Studio on Savile Row and the closing “Rooftop Show” – Jackson reuses only 20 or so minutes of the original film.
As displayed in the teaser reel released this past summer, the band got along during the month of production far better than we were led to believe in Lindsay-Hogg’s movie, particularly during the second half but this is far from a rose-colored glasses reinvention. At one point one of the members abruptly quits the band, leaving the remaining three in limbo for days. The bickering at Twickenham is expanded but in a thoroughly different, far more understanding context.
In one of the production’s most heartfelt moments, Harrison is shown giving pointers to Starr who is in the process of writing “Octopus’ Garden,” the second and final Beatle song he alone composed. This song and several more which eventually appeared on the album Abbey Road are also included in their embryonic form and represent the high-water marks of the production. Although recorded after the Let it Be album, Abbey Road was released first.
In hindsight, Get Back suffers because of the inclusion of too much repetitive material. Where Let it Be was skimpy, Get Back borders on overwrought. A handful of working songs in progress (“Don’t Let Me Down,” “Dig a Pony,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” and the title track are included a handful of times each with no noticeable differences in arrangements or renderings. Even the “Rooftop Show” is redundant. Running 42 minutes, it includes two songs played twice and the title track three times.
This same sort of content issue arose in November of 1995 with the televised release of The Beatles: Anthology and the DVD which followed. The TV version was just under six hours (spread out over three nights) and it was beyond superb. The DVD was nearly double in length and was chock full of filler. Seriously, do we really need to see a half-dozen live performances of “All My Loving?”
It’s clear that this was a labor of love for Jackson but what he intended to be the documentary equivalent of The Lord of the Rings bears a closer resemblance to The Hobbit.
The Beatles: Get Back is not rated but contains explicit language, mature themes and smoking.
Grade: B-
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