When I first heard Peter Jackson was going to be making a Beatles documentary, I wasn’t terribly excited. To quote one Beatle in an episode of The Simpsons, “it’s been done.” There have been tons of Beatles documentaries made over the years, and where Jackson was focusing his attentions was on a specific point in their careers that had already been documented in the 1970 film Let It Be. Sure, he was going to be restoring and remastering the footage as he had for his previous doc They Shall Not Grow Old (which was done to mixed results), but that alone cannot sustain a movie. It just seemed to be another considerable waste of the talents of the man who once made Lord of the Rings.
But then it came to Disney+ in its’ three-part form (Jackson is incapable of not making trilogies anymore), and the buzz around it was fairly positive. More than that, the footage looked amazing -way better than They Shall Not Grow Old (though in fairness, touching up film from 1969 is way easier than film from the 1910s). And the sheer volume of material Jackson and his team had to work with was enticing too: so much footage and so much audio never before seen that paints a perfect fly-on-the-wall view of what it was like recording what would ultimately be the Beatles’ final album, under strain, stress, tension, but also joy and inspiration –which is what Jackson was hoping for. Indeed, part of the mission statement of Get Back is to correct the common misconceptions about the bands’ final days spread in part by Let It Be and the general rumours that have seeped into public consciousness. The movies are no thrilling exposé; they are a bittersweet document of a complex moment in time preserved.
The Get Back sessions came about under very unfortunate circumstances. Initially envisioned as the lead-in to a return to live performances (which the Beatles stopped doing in 1966), the Get Back recordings were supposed to be a brand new album that would debut with a television special at the end of a behind-the-scenes documentary being shot at Twickenham Studios. However, because of various scheduling conflicts (chiefly a film that Ringo was contracted to appear in), they only had a little under a month to compose and rehearse all the new material in this very unaccommodating studio space. Obviously, it’s a recipe for disaster, and the first part focuses fairly exclusively on that two week period of frequent pressure and misery for the group. There are of course the moments that have been documented before: George’s passive-aggressive “I’ll play what you tell me to play” remark to Paul, or John being completely out of it with Yoko a permanent presence at his side, or of course George’s ultimate quitting the band. Additionally though we see more scenes of Paul’s controlling attitude and audio of a discussion between him and John about how to get George more on-side. But amidst these are also moments of levity, such as in Paul playing along with John’s tomfoolery; inspiration -where we literally see Paul come up with the basic chords for “Get Back” while strumming in wait for John. There’s some moving pathos too: a sadly prescient moment the morning after George has left where Paul and Ringo speculate if John is even going to bother to show up. “And then there were two”, Paul says wiping away tears.
What these documentaries do perhaps most nobly in their intimate portrait of the Beatles is showcase their humanity, their vulnerabilities -the sides that weren’t always palpable to the fans, secure in certain images they had of the band members. You get a genuine idea of who they were as people during this time and what they wanted. You empathize with George desiring greater agency in the band, feeling condescended to by John and Paul, and frustrated by the hostile atmosphere. But you also empathize with Paul doing all he can to steer this ship he has limited control over, invested in keeping the band together and producing great music. Jackson’s editing choices and where he focuses attention at any given moment highlights in even just an expression or passing glance how the bandmates are feeling and what might be going through their mind. It thoroughly instills how young they were too, still all under thirty when they recorded this album.
Jackson understands the necessity for the drama, but allows also the story to play out into more warming territory too. And once moved to their Apple Studio, the tension settles, and we see more of the Beatles in higher spirits as they have fun and play music together. It is so nice to see these moments of John or Ringo goofing off or George smiling widely at a joke. On his recommendation, they brought in keyboardist Billy Preston, whose presence has a major positive impact on the mood of all four. From here on out, most of part two and about half of part three is just a jam session where we’re privy to a lot of the creative process behind many of the songs from the Beatles’ last two albums. Similar to Paul with “Get Back”, there’s a bit of George experimenting with the basic chords and lyrics for what would become “Something”; and a really sweet scene where George helps Ringo figure out the lyrics for “Octopus’s Garden”. A lot of myths are dispelled: there’s no evidence of the alleged fight between John and George; and Yoko, though ever-present, can’t possibly be blamed for breaking up the Beatles, given she never interferes in their process –only becoming involved on their request to provide practice vocals (and being Yoko, it’s typically performance art-style wailing). Most of the time she’s just quietly hanging out, reading magazines with John on the cover.
Indeed, if Get Back does answer the question of who broke up the Beatles, it may be all of them. There’s something bittersweet in that even when they’re getting along, it’s palpable that this is an image of a band coming to an end. John and George have lofty individual ambitions, and Paul could be guilty of turning the Beatles into a mere backing group for himself (most of the songs they’re workshopping were written by him –John not contributing as much as he used to). Jackson isn’t interested in blame though and he’s relying on the audience not to be either. We’re far enough removed from the break-up that few really care about their relatively short life-span as a group given how much they left the world with. It doesn’t matter so much that they ended, but that they were, is the documentary’s argument.
Jackson brings them to life in astonishing detail too. The restoration work is fairly remarkable, the footage extraordinarily clean –arguably too much so for some fans and audiences, who might prefer the rawness of the original tapes. However, I can’t admonish it for effectively immersing the audience in that world, which is what Jackson’s best films have done. The Beatles feel like tangible people here, not larger than life figures of pop culture history. Combined with their unadulterated relatability (this is the only title on Disney+ that has allowed for swearing), this restoration quality lends an unmatched immediacy to the Beatles that hasn’t been felt in a long time.
The apex of this series is of course that legendary rooftop performance at the end of the Get Back sessions that served as the Beatles’ final live show. It’s built up quite well as the band members realize they won’t be able to meet the commitment they set out to and decide to try something bold and rebellious. Jackson showcases well the mixed opinions it gets out of everyone, but then they ultimately decide to go for it and it’s amazing! The documentary plays the entire uncut forty-two-minute impromptu concert often in split-screen against reactions from the public below, some excited, some pleasantly surprised, a couple annoyed –and also the police coming in to put a stop to it. It’s thrilling and utterly satisfying and the Beatles look so cool doing it. At one point, pressured by the police, an aide unplugs George’s amp only for him to plug it right back in. There’s such fun spontaneity to the whole affair: Paul goads the cops on at one point while John sings a few notes of “Danny Boy”. And with the context of everything that came before, it’s a completely fresh take on a singular moment of history, a last great show of defiance and the cathartic culmination of what this band has been through over the past month.
Running at a total of eight hours, I don’t entirely agree that Jackson cut the footage he had down to the bone of necessity. There’s at least about a half hour that doesn’t need to be there. At the same time though, this is a historical document, and Jackson’s right to worry that the footage he doesn’t use is likely to remain unseen for another fifty years. Obviously you have to wonder about some of the stuff he did cut for the sake of narrative. But the footage that is there certainly confirms that in spite of their internal squabbling, a spark of that old Beatles magic remained into their fading years –and it’s wonderful to behold!
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/
Comments
Post a Comment