Get Back

At the start of 1969, things were rapidly deteriorating for The Beatles: Their 1968 recording sessions for "The White Album" had turned so sour that recording engineer Geoff Emerick quit in July, followed by Ringo Starr in August. Their manager Brian Epstein had died in 1967 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. They'd given up touring in 1966 to protect their own safety and sanity. 

It may seem shocking that the most famous quartet in the world chose, as their next project, to take empty time and space in Twyckenham Film Studios, this time without even producer George Martin, who didn't go. This is where Peter Jackson's epic 8-hour film, currently available on Disney+, comes in.

For Beatlephiles like me, the film is both a huge blessing and a bit of a let down. More on the let down later. The original Michael Lindsay-Hogg movie "Let it Be" was never released on DVD, and has been out of official circulation in all formats since the 1980's. So, getting any version of this material is big. Most of it has been buried for decades, and some of it has never been seen in public. Getting this much of it, is bigger still. John Lennon might have called it "the shittiest load of badly recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever," but it was The Beatles' shittiest load of badly recorded shit. And here we have it: The Beatles, up close and personal, hour after hour, slogging their way through the project.

Official Trailer for "Get Back"

That's also, in a very real sense, a large part of the downside: It really is the shittiest load of badly recorded shit, and not just by Beatles standards. The constraints of the project -- trying to come up with 14 new songs in order to produce a live TV special, all in less that a month, in a rehearsal space that was spectacularly unfit for recording work, and without their manager (dead), producer (declined to go), or recording engineer (quit) -- were severe. The Beatles were rudderless. 

John Lennon, stoned on heroin and otherwise distracted by Yoko Ono, was unproductive during this period. He had just one song, "Don't Let Me Down," that was up to par, and one much lesser song, "Dig a Pony," that was reasonably usable. His other songs, including "On the Road to Marrakesh" (later to become reworked as "Jealous Guy"), a brief attempt at retrieving the as-yet unreleased "Across the Universe," and a couple of tracks that would eventually end up on "Abbey Road," were never seriously explored. 

This left Paul McCartney as the somewhat reluctant leader of the group, and this hardly helped matters. Paul was coming up with new material at an astonishing pace, but his air of superiority, combined with his over-eager attempts to get John fully involved while either ignoring or belittling George Harrison's efforts, led first to monumental wastage of studio time and then to George finally giving up and quitting the band. With George away, the band did not come together, instead they clowned around backing up Yoko Ono, and John and Yoko gave a ridiculously awkward interview at Twyckenham for the CBC that is sometimes referred to as "The Two Junkies" interview.

Lindsay-Hogg's movie didn't mention the drug abuse, nor even Harrison quitting the band. Jackson is more thorough: the band's dissolution, along with George's planned but still startling departure, is there for all to see. The drug abuse is there, kind of, if you squint hard enough. Jackson chose to accentuate the positive, showing joyous scenes of the Beatles joking, dancing, and enjoying each other's company without really exploring the extent to which those laughs were masks.

Over the course of the series, the Beatles are shown playing more than 100 different songs, in many cases pretty badly. It's impressive, in a sense, that they knew... sort of... so many older chestnuts. They did manage to rescue their own "One After 909" from being a 1963 outtake to being the best rocker of the entire suite of recordings, complete with an amusing scene in which Paul dissects the lyrics. They also briefly turned "Get Back" in to a would-be protest song about English attitudes towards immigrants, and previewed many songs that would later end up on "Abbey Road" or on various post-Beatles solo albums. I wouldn't want to miss any of it; far from it, these scenes, both of good playing and bad, are often compelling.

There are characters brought to life in this film: Linda Eastman, first befriending Yoko Ono at Twyckenham, then taking many iconic pictures of the band members rehearsing, and even bringing her 6-year old  daughter Heather to recording sessions at Savile Row; hanger-on and would-be sound designer Magic Alex, who was actually the head of Apple Electronics before his contraptions proved completely worthless (they were allegedly sold as scrap for 5 pounds after the Beatles' horrified reaction); George's Hare Krishna friends who came to Twyckenham; Mal Evans, always Mal Evans, the former bouncer at the Cavern Club, who would do everything from scribbling down lyrics as the Beatles were coming up with them, to chatting with Paul while Paul was inventing a new song, to playing with Linda's daughter, to gleefully banging away at an anvil during the rehearsals of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," to politely fending off policemen on the ground floor at Savile Row while the Beatles played on the roof; Billy Preston, happy and seemingly single-handedly snapping the band in to better behavior and performances. And also, Ringo, who seemingly alone seemed to appreciate the better qualities of the music making; he is at once a member of the band and a fan of his mates, and the love shown to him in return feels real.

We get to see some of the realities of the Beatles' shared professional existence. All of them knew, and plainly expressed, that the band was disintegrating in plain sight, even while laughing at overblown tabloid headlines about it. George was fragile; John insecure; Paul desperate. We also get to see the collaborative process, in which seemingly all members of the band -- and sometimes their friends -- contributed in various ways to the creation of the songs. The evolution of "Get Back," in particular, over several scenes, from Ringo's initial recognition via hand claps that Paul was on to something, to George laying out the groove while surrendering the guitar solo to John. The scenes of the Beatles gathered in the control room, along with families, girlfriends, children, recording engineers, and George Martin, listening to their play-backs, illustrate the monotony of the sessions, the drab surroundings for the greatest group in the world, and also how much those factors just didn't matter when the music was good. 

One decision that Jackson made, though really simple, also helps the movie a lot: he takes it strictly one day at a time, with exceptions made only to put the events in to context. This gives the film its basic 3-part structure: Part One is the disaster at Twyckenham leading to George's temporary exit; Part Two is the attempt to pull things back together at Apple Records in Savile Row, with the miraculously serendipitous appearance of Billy Preston to the band, as well as having George Martin back in the studio; Part Three is the final rehearsals, culminating in the legendary rooftop performance.

Speaking of the rooftop: that performance, from January 30, 1969, is the clear highlight of the picture. Only about half of it was in Lindsay-Hogg's movie. Here, Jackson presents the entire show, from as many as 6 angles simultaneously. The Beatles only played 5 different songs ("Get Back," "Don't Let Me Down," "I've Got a Feeling," "One After 909," and "Dig a Pony"), and they were barely ready, but it's breathtaking nonetheless. Some of the comments from the accidental ear-witnesses along Savile Row are worthy of any Monty Python skit. That scene also finally exposes the myth of the police somehow breaking up the show; they didn't.

Now, then, my frustrations with the film (apart from the quality of the music):

1. Jackson traded in quality for quantity for the studio performances. Except for the rooftop concert, no songs are presented in full, not even the ones that were ultimately released as singles or made it to the "Let it Be" album.
2. The January 31st in-studio recordings, originally labeled as "Apple Studio Performance," and featuring the 4 Beatles plus Preston arranged in a stage formation, is relegated to the closing credits. This session produced 3 of the songs that made the album, include a pair of #1 hits. Point being, this last session wasn't merely an afterthought, it was an important part of the project.

performance of "Let It Be," January 31, 1969

Relatively minor nits, but once I've digested the process film -- and I'm guessing I'll be up to watch this again with my new Disney+ subscription -- I also want to see the results film, beyond the rooftop.