The Beatles: Get Back

How patiently diehard Beatles fans awaited a proper reissue of 1970's LET IT BE, Michael Lindsay-Hogg's controversial documentary of the band rehearsing and recording songs for what what be their final release (though not final recording).  You may have heard that surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr repeatedly squashed efforts for any sort of latter day exhibitions (at least since its HBO airings in the late '70s), due to scenes that painted a far from rosy portrait of the Fab Four.  I had to obtain a bootleg DVD which was of poor quality.  It was worth the slog to watch the process of making music, be it fascinating or ponderous.  As Paul and Ringo stated they would not allow LET IT BE to be re-released in their lifetimes, I resigned to having to wait for the certain remaster when the time came.  Kinda like we did with Aretha Franklin's AMAZING GRACE.

So God bless Peter Jackson, who in his New Zealand compound undertook the task of sorting through many hours of unused footage of the Beatles at the Twickenham and Apple studios.  The good, the bad, and at times the kinda ugly.  The creative differences, the inspiration.  The joking around and the awkwardness.  The odd drop-by by Peter Sellers.  Jackson's cut paints a far more positive and comprehensive portrait.  Lindsay-Hogg had been brought in to shoot the recording of the album and eventual preparation for what was originally intended to be a television special.  By the end of a long month in January 1969, the boys instead decided to stage a different event and jammed through a forty-two minute concert, their last, on the roof of the Apple Studios.   This amazing sequence - shot both at roof and street level - closes the nearly eight hour long miniseries THE BEATLES: GET BACK from last year. 

I'm always hypnotized by musicians as they work out their tunes.  I can watch them for days on end, so mesmerized I might even forget to have a wee once in a while.  Other viewers quickly get bored, and GET BACK is certainly not for them.  Those who remember Victor Borge might be reminded of his act, as he would tinkle a few keys on the piano and then stop to add another quip, never resolving the song.  Concentrated frustration for many folks.  Paul begins a vocal for "Get Back" and then lapses into a silly accent, or responds to one of John's jokes.  Or wonders where in the hell producer Glyn Johns might be.   The boys spend as much time talking about their music as writing and making it, and then wonder why they're not doing more of the latter. 

George Harrison was butting heads with McCartney and John Lennon, enough so for him to temporarily quit the band.  On a day when Lennon skips rehearsal time, Paul and Ringo lament "And then there were two..." quite a poignant thing at this late date.  But George returned when it was decided to record Let it Be at Apple, with Lindsay-Hogg and crew in tow.  A much better atmosphere for all of them, though Paul would still come off as a taskmaster.  John increasingly withdrawn, with Yoko Ono never more than a few feet away.  George trying to push his contributions forward.   Ringo mostly silent and non confrontational. 

All of it magical.  I was constantly amazed at the genius that would spring forth from so much seeming wasted time.  The guys are always interesting to watch, as vivid as anything fictional.   As Paul says,  they work best with their backs up against the wall.   When they finally reach that rooftop, it's as if all the tedium and drama was just a bad dream.  Watching Paul and John cue each other is something otherworldly.  Jackson heightens this experience with split screen, and even identifies those bobbies enlisted to shut it down, seeing as they've had thirty complaints in the last hour.