It was with eager, enthusiastic anticipation that I approached Get Back, the new eight-hour, three part documentary about the recording sessions which would eventually yield the Beatles posthumous album Let it Be. “New” is not exactly the right word to use here – Peter Jackson’s Get Back is drawn from mountains of spectacularly restored footage, originally shot in 1969 under the supervision of director Michael Lindsey-Hogg for his long-suppressed eighty minute documentary, Let It Be (1970).
I saw Let it Be in college, before it was withdrawn from circulation. It was and remains an essential film—and a real bummer, at times painful to watch, which contributed to its subsequent banishment. Lindsey-Hogg captured the Beatles as they were coming apart, and the movie featured much bickering and made plain profound underlying tensions within the band, as a rather bossy Paul tried to hold together a group of extraordinary but increasingly diverging talents, and very strong-willed personalities, who each – especially John and George – often longed to be elsewhere. It has been decades now, but I have always carried as if struck by a blow the exchange (present in the new version) of a quietly exasperated George telling Paul that he can “play it any way you like” or even perhaps “not play it at all.”
Thus although I was more than excited to see this new restoration/interpretation, it was with some trepidation as well. Advance word suggested that Get Back was revisionist affair, one that would tell a somewhat happier (and to my ears potentially dishonest) story. As Agnes Varda admonished, “there is no such thing as an objective documentary” (and this includes Lindsey Hogg’s, which John and Ringo thought radically skewed), and I was not interested in being spoon fed a sunnier version of events that we know, from countless close studies, was a fraught affair.
It is therefore a pleasure to report that Get Back is only gently revisionist—and a must see. The first part in particular is bracingly honest. There is Paul, indeed quite bossy, perhaps, as discussed in the film, trying to fill the shoes of their absent manager Brain Epstein. (Often dubbed the “fifth Beatle,” Epstein died in unhappy circumstances in 1967.) Part one also shows how Ringo, whose contributions to the band were certainly fourth of four but nevertheless not to be underestimated, was often treated with an implicit, casual disrespect. And how George was so unhappy that at one point he simply stood up and walked out, quitting the band. (An ethically dubious but historically invaluable hidden microphone captures John and Paul admitting that they had been treating him shabbily for years.) Part one closes on a note as down as any seen in Lindsay-Hogg’s original, with reports of a summit meeting at Ringo’s house to persuade George to return to the fold, which, intertitles tell us, “did not go well.”
Parts two and three – studio rehearsals and the lead up to that legendary, brief, exuberant rooftop concert (the first time the Beatles had played live together in three years, and the last time they would ever do so) – are indeed much more fan-friendly, ultimately to a fault. Certainly, there are important truths here: the fact that the band was coming apart doesn’t diminish the group’s still staggering accomplishments, astonishing synergies, and real moments of joy—all captured, gloriously, on this footage. But viewers unfamiliar with the history would not know, for example, that the recent recording sessions for their previous effort (The White Album) were deeply troubled, reflecting a similar collective ennui and entropy (that time it was Ringo who quit); that despite the “happy ending” of Jackson’s film the recordings presented here were left in the can and assembled, to some controversy, after the group’s demise by the future murderer Phil Spector; that their next and last to be recorded album, Abbey Road, was only made possible by a compromise that gave John creative control over Side 1 and Paul over Side 2; and that bitter fights over management and money (scarcely hinted it here) added enormous pressures to an already barely-sustainable operation. (This last dispute led to one of our favorite George Harrison quotes, in a letter to Paul McCartney, who in 1970 threatened to take his solo album away from Apple Records: “You’ll stay on the fucking label. Hare Krishna.”)
Okay, so there’s all that. And don’t forget it. Having said that, however, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Get Back is an utterly mesmerizing film. A few viewers have grumbled about its length and some arguably tedious passages. But I would have happily watched eight hours more—we were sorry to see it end. Most thrilling, throughout, is to watch the Beatles individually and collectively craft songs from scratch – songs that you know by heart, songs that would subsequently appear on Abbey Road, Let it Be, and individual solo albums – and to realize, again and of course, that these were creations that started from nothing. It is an exceedingly rare opportunity to witness genius at work.
That would have been more than enough to ensure this film’s enduring legacy. But there are dozens of other gems littered throughout, revelations large and small. (An example of the latter: it had never occurred to us before that producer George Martin – who we have always thought had by far the strongest case for the title of “fifth Beatle” – was quite a handsome man.) Among the things that grasped our rapt attention: Paul’s understanding of John’s relationship with Yoko. George helping Ringo with Octopus’s Garden. So many moments of sheer musical virtuosity. Serious conversations about where the band was going (the entire “Get Back” concept was derived from a desire to return to their rock-and-roll roots). Hints of John’s (unstated) flirtation with very hard drugs. George floating the idea of a solo album. The essential roles of Billy Preston (once he showed up, and sat in, much more work got done), and supervising recording producer Glyn Johns (who, here at least, comes across as cool, capable, smart, and very, very savvy). The ubiquitous and at times irritating (and guardedly irritated) Lindsay Hogg, who was obsessed with the idea that the movie needed a big live overseas show, leading to the best line in the film, and a life lesson from Paul on the use of the passive voice and British understatement: “I think you’ll find we’re not going abroad.”
A big box set will inevitably follow. Hopefully it will include the Lindsey-Hogg’s original. And maybe a few more pieces of business not included in Jackson’s eight hour cut. And then we’ll watch it all over again.
