The Beatles: Get Back

The Black Oil · 24-12-2020 7:48pm #1

Peter Jackson delving into the archives once more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UocEGvQ10OE

Beechwoodspark · 24-12-2020 7:49pm

Saw the “sneak peek”. Not overly impressed. Will catch it whenever it is on tv

Agent Coulson · 24-12-2020 9:57pm

So do Disney now own the rights to The Beatles catalogue?

cml387 · 24-12-2020 10:14pm

A bit of backstory here.

Hours and hours of footage were shot in 1969 as part of what The Beatles planned as a "back to basics" music album of which the film was going to be part.

What emerged eventually was a heavily censored (by the fab four) film and the album "Let It Be" was a mish mash cobbled together by Lennon and Phil Spector.

For a Beatles fan what makes this Jackson version special is the restoration of the film and the novelty of seeing The Beatles in sparkling HD as if recorded yesterday.

I doubt whether it will much appeal to a casual viewer but the trailer did knock me back a bit, I shall be interested to see the final version.

24-12-2020 10:15pm

I adored Eight Days a Week and can't imagine anything better, but I'd watch Beatles docs all day long so will pick it up at some stage

emo72 · 24-12-2020 11:25pm

Growing up in the 70s we were told that those recordings were a fractious affair. Lots of bad blood between the fab 4. That snippet tells a different story. It looks like they had great fun. The quality of the restoration is amazing. I can't wait to see the movie.

El Gato De Negocios · 27-12-2020 9:48am

Paloma Little Salami wrote: »

I adored Eight Days a Week and can't imagine anything better, but I'd watch Beatles docs all day long so will pick it up at some stage

Same, more excited to see this than anything else coming down the tracks. Its pretty heartbreaking when you think that so little footage of the band exists considering they are arguably the greatest band of all time.

Agent Coulson · 16-10-2021 8:37pm

Now a 3 episode series which drops one episode a day starting November 25th, 26th & 27th on Disney+.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M607TcuKf78

Agent Coulson · 13-11-2021 5:34am

...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S4PYfwuMQs&ab_channel=WaltDisneyStudios

The Nal · 25-11-2021 9:21am

This is so good. Every second of it.

TheIrishGrover · 25-11-2021 3:58pm

Looking forward to checking this out. The footage restoration looks fantastic.

trashcan · 25-11-2021 4:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/115704439#Comment_115704439

Ditto to all of that. I’m a sucker for most music documentaries, but especially the Beatles. Eight Days a Week was great, this should be too. I found a low quality copy of the original on YouTube a few years ago and it wasn’t great to be honest, so hopefully this will be an improvement.

Seathrun66 · 25-11-2021 6:12pm

Watched the first half of the first part earlier today. Fascinating stuff but hard to see it appealing to non-fans in the way that previous material on the band has. Seven hours of studio interplay and forty mins of a rooftop gig. Catnip for me though.

Arghus · 25-11-2021 8:36pm

I'm loving it too, but I'd have a hard time selling it to someone who didn't love them - it is just guys working on music. I'd understand how eight hours of it mightn't do it for people.

So cool to see them working through the songs. Everyone looks so cool.

phonypony · 25-11-2021 8:56pm

Pretty decent so far, but I find the constant shoehorning of b-roll where it's not necessary to be really annoying. It's one thing (and often a necessary evil) to cut to a shot from a totally different song, different tempos, even when it's painfully obvious, I think it's generally accepted in a film like this. But cutting to a half second shot of Linda for example, 20 feet away from the others in the conversation, mouthing a different word to what's on the audio, it's like a bad home movie in places. There are even times where it's clear it's Paul saying something on the audio and they've cut in a shot of John mouthing a similar word.

I thought this production would be above all that and let the footage they do have and the matching audio speak for themselves.

El Gato De Negocios · 25-11-2021 10:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118223424#Comment_118223424

At the opening of it, it states that there are scenes where audio was captured but no video and that "stock shots would be used in the absence of available footage, not sure where the annoyance is coming from tbh.

Anyway, just finished part 1. Really enjoying, it's something that we never see that raw and up close, ie the simultaneous birthing of an album running parallel with the disintegration of the biggest bad in the world. They really were the Lenton and McCartney show. Probably a bit boring for non fans of the band but I'm finding it utterly fascinating and will watch part 2 tomorrow night, Toy Show be damned! 🤣

Seathrun66 · 26-11-2021 10:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118223925#Comment_118223925

I agree re the B-roll stuff, they made that clear at the start and in all interviews about the doc. First part fascinating but you've really got to be a devotee. I can't see this appealing to many of my pals, heavy music fans though they are. Some observations:

Macca is running it, but trying to include everyone. George is cranky, Lennon still in his heroin phase and not engaging much. Ringo just looks bored staring down from the drumkit all day.
The director's pushing of the Libya gig is pretty hilarious.
Macca enjoyed his cigars.
The creativity on show is astounding. Only the first part but rehearsals already have several tracks from both Let It Be and Abbey Road as well as solo stuff such as Gimme Some Truth, All Things Must Pass, Another Day. The development of Get Back was stunning.
They're decent guys who interact well with all those about them.
Linda is cute.
Yoko has infinite patience sitting there all day long listening to blokes jamming and bantering. Maybe she has John's stash and he needs her close.
The footage is extraordinary. Astonishing that it exists.

El Gato De Negocios · 26-11-2021 11:18am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118225486#Comment_118225486

Their creativity was and is staggering. Literally just sitting there with a tune in their head, playing it, mmmm mmmm mmmming the sound of the words they think fit, then fitting the words around it.

Arghus · 26-11-2021 11:28am

Yeah, it was amazing to see them tossing out songs like All Things Must Pass and Gimme Some Truth like they were nothing - "oh I've been working on this one, what do you think?"

Makes me think about Noel Gallagher has been patting himself on the back for nearly 30 years for writing Live Forever - it wouldn't have even got beyond a jam session with the Beatles.

El Gato De Negocios · 26-11-2021 12:30pm

You'd have to wonder what effect Epsteins death had on them as a group. The reverence they had for him, referring to him as Mr Epstein even though he was just a couple of years older than them. He could well have been the glue that was holding them together, they even said as such in part 1. A case of what might have beens.

Agent Coulson · 26-11-2021 12:31pm

Just watching Harrison saying to Ringo I was watching this thing on the BBC last night and I wrote this small song do you want to hear it and then he starts I Me Mine

The Nal · 26-11-2021 12:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118226065#Comment_118226065

Well they'd no issue taking the piss either. Lennon used to sing "Baby You're a Rich Fag Jew" when they were recording Baby Youre a Rich Man.

Although he was still alive then.

Theres a fantastic bit, still to come, when Ringo brings in Octopuses Garden and George helps him with it.

loyatemu · 26-11-2021 3:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118226074#Comment_118226074

more trivia - I Me Mine was the last song they ever recorded, in early 1970 (without Lennon) - they only went back to record it because that clip was featured in the original Let It Be movie and they wanted the song on the "soundtrack" album.

Toeuptony · 26-11-2021 4:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118223925#Comment_118223925

Yep, this interview with Peter Jackson goes into a bit more detail on what archives they had to work with and it also explains the gap between audio and video footage

https://www.avclub.com/peter-jackson-on-asking-the-beatles-the-tough-questions-1848104306

El Gato De Negocios · 26-11-2021 10:47pm

Just finished up with part two, a compelling watch. Lennon was very obviously out of it in parts and you'd have to have a degree of sympathy for Paul, George and John had checked out of the band but he was desperately trying to cling to the past.

Just on Yoko. Its oft been reported that she wasn't to blame for the break up but fcuk me pink, she is stuck to Lennon like a barnacle. He obviously wanted it that way but there is no way in hell that she wasn't someway responsible for the wedge, even if it was indirectly. Can you imagine what it would be like, being there with the closest people in your life for more than a decade, trying to create something but having an omnipresent interlopper watching every single thing and interjecting in conversations that are of no concern to them.

Won't get to watch part 3 til Sunday but I'm dying to see it.

Royale with Cheese · 26-11-2021 11:25pm

Just watched episode 1 and the start of episode 2. I absolutely love the Beatles so I'm enjoying it but I can't help but feel I'm in a bit of a niche as far as viewers in 2021 go. My wife was falling asleep towards the end of episode 1. Could this really not have been edited down to a 2 - 2.5 hour film for the casual viewer?

El Gato De Negocios · 27-11-2021 6:36am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230113#Comment_118230113

How many casual viewers would be interested in it, even in a truncated form?

It's unequivocally something for fans of the band and it would be doing a disservice to them to leave out alot of the stuff. At the end of the day, there are 10s of millions of fans of the band in the world that appreciate the unique insights.

Forgot to mention last night, Billy Preston was an effin genius. Coming in completely cold, listening to them play rough cuts of the tracks and syncing his piano perfectly with them. Ridiculous talent and him only 25 at the time.

Wibbs · 27-11-2021 11:33am

Lennon comes across as a petulant arse a lot of the time, with little enough to offer musically compared to McCartney. McCartney really does seem to be trying to hold them together, navigating Lennon's moods and Harrison's concerns, even giving props to Ono, though she must have been a bloody headwreck in that environment and at one point he's nearly at the point of tears over it all. Harrison was coming into his own. Why they didn't include his All things must pass on that album or the next is beyond me(or Macca's Another Day). At least they copped on with Something and Here comes the sun. The other two, but especially Lennon were largely ignoring him. Then again that had always been the case. McCartney did put in the time and effort and did help Harrison on a lot of his songs, Lennon rarely enough did and was patronising about it. For the very last Beatles recording session for Harrison's I me mine, it was Paul and Ringo there, Lennon was gone. It always surprised me that Harrison and Ringo gravitated towards Lennon after the split. McCartney is the one with the work ethic though, to the point of perfectionist and control freak over the product so that would be a lot of it I suppose. Ringo was just easy going Ringo. Without him in the mix I suspect they'd have produced fewer quality songs(he was miles ahead of someone like Charlie Watts for example) and would have split up earlier.

You'd want to be a fan alright, but it was interesting to see the wider dynamics going on and how they were still in the game a lot of the time. I'd seen the original Let it Be flic back in the 90's and it was more depressing and covered up a lot of the cracks and good vibes. It also gave a hint of how it might have been resolved and how they might have continued on for a little longer. The idea of Lennon's of bringing in different people like Preston and Dylan as a "Beatles & Co" could well have worked, though McCartney poo poo'd that notion.

For me it's a documentary on what was and what might have been and how scarily creative they were even at that stage. And how quickly they came up with stuff and how bloody hard they worked at it. None of this three years between albums stuff. They worked five, often six days a week, on top of writing at home, 12 or more hour days together, pretty much week in weekout for eight years honing song after song. 12 albums, 13 EPs and 22 singles. Never mind touring the world for half of that time. Never mind a near continuous upward improvement in quality on the cutting edge of music producing stuff that had never been heard before and rarely repeating themselves while always sounding like them. Consider this; the gap between recording Help! and Tomorrow Never Knows is less than a year. Absolutely insane output.

Ben Done · 27-11-2021 5:45pm

^Great post.

Only watched ep1 so far.

Can see how it's only one for Beatles fans, but personally I'd be happy to watch Jackson's initial cut, which I think he said was 16 hours!

Amazing watching songs you've known all your life being born before your eyes, under such pressure as well.

Lindsey-Hogg comes across as a posh twat, and his constant pushing of Tripoli, when George was dead set against it, contributed to the negative atmosphere and George's ultimate walk-out, imo.

Wibbs · 27-11-2021 6:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118232718#Comment_118232718

Lindsey-Hogg comes across as a posh twat

So it wasn't just me who thought that then? 😁

Yeah, total eejit. Though he was at the start of the whole "music video" thing and had directed a few of the Beatles early ones and the Stones too, so was horribly well connected. It was that more than talent IMHO. They could have approached some of the new wave French directors(like the Stones did) or some of the top flight British or American guys too. Though maybe Hoggs slightly amateur faffing about made for a more gritty end project which looks more fly on the wall "modern". He was a young turk just like them and I suspect his posh background had some part to play in it too. Britain was still very much a class ridden society and him being a minor aristo was likely an automatic "respect" thing with the Beatles. George Martin had that effect on them early on and notice how they referred to their late manager as "Mr Epstein". It's easy to forget that though they were hipper than a hip thing they were a British generation born in the war and many of the old scutter was still very much in play. Lennon of course milked that the other way, with his "working class hero" schtick, even though he was by far the most middle class of the lot of them. Not too many working class English kids in the 1950's were swanning off to art school.

Ringo was also dead set against Tripoli too. Which is a kind of a pity as the Beatles playing on that Roman stage would have been amazeballs(Pink Floyd nicked the Roman stage thing for themselves later). Though less so for the songs they were working on there. Abbey Road would have been the better fit IMHO. Then again with Hogg directing and the tech of the time it could well have been a washout. Now if they had David Lean shooting and George Martin producing the soundtrack...

Simon201 · 27-11-2021 7:12pm

Easy to say now I suppose, and I'm only on the first episode but I love all the Beatles before and after the split but I just felt I wanted to hear Lennon and McCartney just occasionally give a bit of praise to George for the ideas of his early versions of songs. I've always been of the opinion that the best of George's songs easily equal the best of Lennon and McCartneys songs. It's just that they were more plentiful over the years they were together. And yes, as some have said how the hell did they pretty much disregard George doing his early version of All Things Must Pass!

The Beatles: Get Back

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