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After 50 years locked away in a vault, director
Peter Jackson has edited 57 hours of footage into a documentary
series that shows The Beatles jamming, dancing, joking,
experimenting with new songs and working through their
differences.
"This is the Beatles as you've never seen them before. As human
beings," said Jackson, the New Zealand director of "The Lord of
the Rings" and a Beatles fan.
Originally shot over 22 days in January 1969, the tapes offer a
starkly different portrait of the Liverpool band in the months
before their acrimonious split.
Contrary to perceived Beatles history that the four musicians
could no longer bear to spend time together, Jackson found
"these four guys who are friends, who have a deep respect for
each other."
"Instead of shouting at each other and blaming each other and
kind of going crazy, they just knuckle down, be professional,
have a sense of humor and get on with it. And they end up with
the triumph of the rooftop," said Jackson.
The three-part documentary "The Beatles: Get Back" will be
released on Disney+ on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The tapes were recorded when Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George
Harrison and Ringo Starr met to write 14 songs, record a new
album and arrange their first live performance in three years.
That now legendary Jan. 30 concert - on the rooftop of the Apple
Corps headquarters in central London - was also their last.
As McCartney puts it at one point, "The best part of us has been
and always will be when we're backs against the wall."
The tapes were originally filmed for a shorter, rancorous
documentary - "Let It Be" made by Michael Lindsay-Hogg - that
was released in May 1970 just after McCartney officially quit
the band.
Jackson worked with the agreement of surviving members McCartney
and Starr, the widow of Harrison, and Lennon's son Sean, but
said none of them ever asked for changes or edits despite being
nervous about the documentary's reception.
McCartney and Starr, he said, can barely remember the details of
those days so "they're essentially seeing it almost for the
first time as well."
"They also said it was quite stressful to watch. They're very
aware that they are pulling the curtain away and you're seeing
the Beatles in an intimate, raw way that they've never allowed
themselves to be seen before," he said.
As a lifelong Beatles fan who names "Penny Lane" amongst his
favorite tracks, Jackson attributes the continuing popularity of
the Beatles to the range and infectious quality of their music.
"You can't imagine that the song 'Yesterday' and 'Revolution No.
9' came from the same band. If you played it to people that
don't know in a million years they wouldn't think it was the
same band."
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
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