I’ve been watching music documentaries all year long as I worked on my own doc on the history of jazz in Shanghai. Partly these films are for inspiration—and a great deal of what I learned from these docs went into my own doc—and partly they are for fun and enjoyment. This week I took the time to watch the new three-part documentary film on the Beatles, “Get Back.” Directed by LOR director Peter Jackson, this film just came out at the end of last month on the Disney Plus channel (which means you have to buy into the channel to see it). Since I’m a huge Beatles fan and have been since I was a wee lad, it was a great pleasure to be granted privileged access to their recording studios in January 1969 and observe them closely as they put together a new album, which turned into Let It Be.
This album and the accompanying Abbey Road album, which they made later that year, was their swan song as a group, since they separated and went their own ways afterwards. Also, the concert they held on the rooftop of their own Apple Corp. building in downtown London was the last time the band would ever play together. As a Beatles fan and as a musician with some aspirations towards songwriting, watching them rehearse and come up with songs for the album and concert is a fascinating experience. Though it’s a long film (around 8 hours in total), for me it was well worth the time it took (three consecutive nights of viewing in my case) to see the film in its totality.
For those of you who missed the news, Peter Jackson and his team sifted through around 60 hours of original footage from a documentary project originally led by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, whose 1970 documentary, Let It Be, was the first product of this filmmaking venture. Filmed with several cameras giving you several different vantage points, the footage captures all members of the Fab Four plus a “fifth Beatle,” the African American keyboardist, Billy Preston, who joined the band midway through their one-month slog towards making a new album. There’s also a “sixth Beatle,” namely their long-time producer George Martin, who although not the final producer of the album Let it Be (unfortunately) was helping them to record the songs in their own home-grown Apple studio, along with a healthy dose of equipment borrowed from his company EMI Records. The cameras and an aerial mic, which hovers into view now and then above them, capture all of the nuances of their interactions, musicianship, facial expressions, and casual conversations over nearly a one-month long period. In full color, and with all the magic that Peter Jackson and his team could assemble to fix up the old footage and sound , the results are stunning. Never have we the fans had a chance to be so close to the four gentlemen and their retinues as they craft an entire album of brand new musical goodies. (If you could smuggle a camera into Santa’s workshop, you might have a similarly magical experience.)
The film is divided into three parts. Sound familiar? After all, this is the dude who directed the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, much to our delight and our chagrin—at least, for those of us who would have preferred a Hobbit that cleaves more closely to the brilliant fantasy novel by Tolkien. My first thought upon hearing this news was: Couldn’t he have cut it into a single full-length documentary film? But no. Once you see the film in all three parts, you realize that it had to be done this way.
Why? First of all, this is a unique record of one of the greatest pop-rock acts of all time, and it will serve as an archive and a treasure trove of information for scholars and fans of the Beatles and of popular music for ages to come. Cutting it down would only have lessened its value, even if it enabled more viewers to see it in its entirety. As it is, other than die-hard Beatles fans, musicians, and lovers of rock music history, it is hard to imagine anybody willing to spend 8 hours watching all this footage. There is an arc to the story, but it’s a long arc indeed.
Part 1 covers the gathering of the band back together after a hiatus. It is obvious from the get-go that this is a last hurrah for the Beatles as a group. The individual members, particularly George, John, and Paul, have already started down their own pathways towards solo careers, or to being the front men of other bands, as the case was for Paul. They have all developed their own distinctive repertoires of songs and song fragments, which they are now competing with each other to get onto the new album and onto their next album, Abbey Road, though they didn’t know it at the time. Even Ringo has some songs to share.
In the first part of the three-part film, Paul emerges as the dominant and driving force behind the band. We thought it was John, and in the early days, it was him. Now Paul is at the helm, driving the team forward through the ice and snow of a newly emerging project and album like a man driving a pack of huskies through a blizzard in Alaska. Not all are on board at first. There is some confusion over what their goal is with this new and somewhat nebulous project. They aren’t familiar with the director Michael Lindsey-Hogg, and they aren’t too comfortable with all the cameras hovering around them. Above all, they are very uncomfortable with the space they’ve been given to work out and rehearse their new songs—the voluminous Twickenham Studios (long story short, another director gives them the “opportunity” to use one of the studios for the project).
Despite their initial attempts to pull themselves back together as a band, things quickly go awry. John (inseparable now from his amour Yoko Ono, who appears by his side throughout the film) is AWOL part of the time. His comings and goings are erratic at first, much to Paul’s chagrin. Here (spoiler alert) is one of the best bits in the film: We see Paul literally pull a new song out of his gut as he aggressively strums on the guitar or bass (can’t remember which now), which turns out to be the classic song “Get Back.” It’s as if he’s trying to call John back into the band—get back Jojo to where you belong!!! It’s one of the most thrilling and haunting scenes in this eight-hour drama, at least in my own humble opinion.
Then, as the first part is winding down, George provides some additional drama to the story by leaving the band. He is apparently huffed because they aren’t taking his own musical ideas seriously enough and because of Paul’s tendency to micro-manage George rather than letting him work out his own bits in the songs. Paul does indeed appear in the film as a domineering leader, telling everyone else exactly what to do for each song. That said, this is the man who not only pulls “Get Back” out of nowhere, but also adds “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road” to the song selection. If there’s one thing that stands out in this film, it’s Paul’s unquestionable genius as a musician, not to mention his incredible work ethic.
In Part 2, the band continues to rehearse without George, but of course they manage to pull him back into the band eventually. George retreats for a few days, obviously a negotiation strategy on his part to be taken more seriously as a songwriter in his own right. Thankfully, after some meetings with George at his home, and after a long conversation between Paul and John that is clandestinely recorded by a mic (one of the more interesting conversations of the film), they convince George to rejoin the band.
But the real turnaround is when they decide to abandon Twickenham Studios and move their operations to their own turf—the basement studio at the Apple office (their company office) in London. At first they try out the equipment that their friend magic Alex has set up only to realize that it is complete rubbish. George Martin and EMI come to the rescue by offering recording equipment and tech support, and they are off and running in their own “home” so to speak. The band members visibly relax and the bonding really begins. Surrounded by their retinue of loyal supporters and loved ones, the Beatles form a band again, and their jubilation flies off the screen as they come together with a combo of golden oldies and new bits and bobs.
What’s fascinating about this process of songwriting is how much they rely on their prodigious knowledge of rock and pop music history. While they continue to forge on with new songs that miraculously come into being over time, they are constantly playing around with old songs—covers mostly, but also their own original songs from earlier stages of their history as a band. Not only do they trot out a veritable history of rock music and its deep roots in R&B and the Blues, but they also delight endlessly in goofing around with these songs. Both Paul and John make faces at each other while crooning in various styles from the sublime to the ridiculous. John adopts a low register for some songs, and he is constantly peppering the sessions with his own humorous if nonsensical verbal interjections (if Paul is the musical genius, John is the verbal genius). George and Ringo get into the groove, although they let Paul and John take center stage. All of this playing around proves crucial in pulling the band and their groove together.
Then in steps Billy Preston, a blues-based keyboardist steeped in the gospel tradition of the USA. His addition to the four-man band gives them even greater energy and spirit, while injecting a large dose of authenticity into their bluesy songs. It also allows the other band members to play around with various styles and instruments. This is the other thing that becomes apparent throughout the film: All members of the Fab Four are multi-instrumentalists. Of course, Paul is the most famous of the group for his ability to master different instruments. While a bass player at heart, he also plays guitar, piano, drums, and some other string instruments. At one point we see Paul and Ringo jamming together—on piano!—with Ringo taking the high keys and Paul (bassman) the low. We also get to witness Ringo working out his song “Octopus’s Garden” on piano. George also plays around on the keyboard now and then, as does John. Sometimes John takes over on bass while Paul plays the piano. This versatility is the band’s secret weapon.
Finally, we come to Part 3. By this time, the band is well on the way to producing yet another great album. We watch and listen closely as their songs coalesce into their familiar and classic forms. We see and hear the performances of multiple versions of many songs, including several that didn’t make the cut for “Let it Be” but made it onto “Abbey Road.” We get to witness their mistakes and missteps as they work out the details of each song. We also hear many songs or song fragments that would become part of their solo repertoires after the band broke up. Meanwhile, they continue to break out into joyful renditions of old pop and rock songs going back to the 1950s. Smiles abound as they re-explore songs from the Cavern Club and Hamburg days, which in turn evoke memories that they share with each other. While the seriousness of honing their new songs intensifies as the deadline for their performance approaches, they never stop having and making fun.
By this time, after long discussions and heated arguments back and forth, the band settles on a solution as to where to hold a live performance, which was one of the stipulations of this filmmaking project. At first the Director Michael wants them to go to Libya for the concert, but they won’t have any of that and Paul makes it very clear that they are not leaving their home country. Yet comically, Michael keeps harping on this idea oblivious to their complete rejection of it. Obviously, none of them are too keen to get back into a public arena. If you know the history of the Beatles, you’ll know that they stopped performing three years earlier in 1966, mainly because they couldn’t hear themselves on stage due to the screaming, but also because they wanted to explore more complicated songs that weren’t easy to produce live (hence Sergeant Pepper’s). But they also felt threatened in live arenas. There was always the possibility of violence to their persons, given the mass hysteria that accompanied the band wherever they went. Thus, getting back onto a public stage must have been a formidable thing for the four lads to contemplate. Not to mention the fact that they look and feel rusty and out of practice (though they loosen up visibly over time).
Finally, their sound engineer Glyn Johns, who has been with them and earned their trust throughout the film project, and their own trusted road manager Mal Evans convince them to go onto the rooftop of their own building, where they can be in the public eye while controlling who gets access to their stage. This turns out to be the ideal solution, and after some hesitation they agree. Most of Part 3 involves them rehearsing their new songs for the album and the live performance coming up in a countdown of days. The songs are getting more and more powerful as they lock into a groove for each song. They are also become more and more familiar and closer to the versions we know and love from the album.
Finally, the long-awaited and anxious day arrives when after many delays and moving around of the schedule, they mount the rooftop stage and perform new songs to the public for the first time in three years. With cameras mounted on the rooftop, on a nearby rooftop, and on the street, as well as a secret camera in the downstairs office, we see the band go from song to song with increasing confidence, nailing each one as their local audience of neighbors and streetwalking pedestrians grows around them. The police come to tell them to kindly desist their noise-making, proving how polite and well-behaved they are in London (at least on camera, though since it was a secret camera they didn’t know it at the time), but the Beatles and their entourage ignore the pleas and finish their concert. Several of the songs, fed into the recording studio, are captured for the album. Everything goes swimmingly, and the Beatles, along with their new member Billy Preston, dismount the impromptu stage triumphantly.
Finally, we are treated to the sessions leading to the definitive versions of their studio songs, including the immortal song “Let it Be.” The filmmakers provide us with captions to let us know which are the definitive versions, and we get to see them performed live. All of these songs that we’ve known all our lives (at least for me, since I was born in the year 1969 when they filmed this session), we see and hear as the four lads conjure them up out of thin air and relentlessly perfect and polish them into the glittering gems and jewels that they became.
