The Beatles

When Peter Jackson announced to Paul McCartney his intention to go back through the 60 hours of footage from which the 1970 film "Let It Be" was drawn, Sir Paul didn't take it particularly well. Beyond having to reopen the suitcase of memories from one of the most delicate moments in the quartet's saga (when the collapse always seemed just around the corner), Macca feared that the depiction of the dynamics within the band might once again come across as distorted or incomplete. He changed his mind, however, once he saw the final result of "Get Back", an eight-hour edit in total that the rest of the world was able to watch starting November 25th on streaming.

Jackson gained access not only to the 60 hours of footage, but also to 150 hours of audio material (much of it, obviously, with no video counterpart), and took on the titanic task of recovering everything that could serve to tell a story that, according to Michael Lindsay-Hogg (the original director of "Let It Be"), had mostly tasted of defeat.

Jackson's research revolves around the assumption that, while it's certainly true that the Beatles' break-up was the news around which the 1970 film had to be built, it's also probably true that Lindsay-Hogg, in his rush to reconcile the reality of events with footage shot a year and a half earlier, lost track along the way of the good that still existed in the relationships between the four.

Let's clear up any confusion right away: "Get Back" is not a viewing experience suited to every fan of pop documentaries. Its eight-hour running time, though split into three episodes, might well discourage anyone who isn't more than motivated to dig into the genesis of the last album released by the four beetles from Liverpool. Then again, Peter Jackson's filmography has never exactly been known for its concision, and in any case the whole point of the "Get Back" project was precisely to widen the scope of available information.

Beyond what is already known about the story, such as the arguments between Harrison and McCartney, George's own frustration at seeing himself almost always excluded from the proverbial human/artistic alchemy of John and Paul, and the differing opinions on the direction the project should take, here we find ourselves facing a small paradigm shift regarding what was thought to be true about the band in January 1969. Lingering extensively on the inevitable messing around during dead time in the studio (the kind that would crop up while sound engineer Glyn Johns fiddled with mics and tape reels, or while a partial contingent of the band waited for the others to arrive), Jackson offers a more intimately detailed picture of what was going through the minds of four boys "more famous than Jesus Christ" during moments of uncertainty, and how each of them handled them in front of the ever-present cameras.

The recording sessions for "Let It Be" were a notoriously challenging test for the band, an attempt to recapture the camaraderie of playing all together in the same room after the extreme fragmentation of the "White Album" sessions.

Not to mention that, in the background, there still lingered the long tail of the disorientation following the loss of Brian Epstein, and the looming presence of Yoko in every single moment of John Lennon's life, including those spent in the studio.

The first part of "Get Back" starts from this substrate of tangled emotions, moving through the discomfort experienced in the location chosen for the audio/video shoot (the chilly Twickenham film studios), where, while McCartney tries to steer the ship so the project doesn't run aground on the shoals of indifference, the drama of Harrison's temporary departure from the band plays out. If all this had been enough for Lindsay-Hogg to define the plot of the story ("we tell it like it is"), the additional material chosen instead by Jackson begins to show its strength precisely when it dwells on the Beatles' stumbling over which direction to follow. Hidden within the replaying of jam sessions and seemingly trivial or secondary exchanges is what looks like an intimate desire to fight back, if only out of pride, against the inevitable end of the game, by restoring the good old days. Lennon quickly restores his goofy spirit, the one capable of defusing any tension (because deep down he knows he too bears some responsibility for Harrison's walkout), while McCartney reins in his exhausting quest for concrete results the moment he realizes his drive is turning into frustration. If the curtain must fall on the Beatles, a few dynamics need fixing first in order to complete the final show.

It's in this context that the first versions of some songs later to appear on "Abbey Road" ("Something", "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", "Oh! Darling!", "Polythene Pam", "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window") are born, songs that would thus see the light of day on record well before those of "Let It Be" — but in the meantime, the band has realized it needs to change register and location. This is where the second part of Peter Jackson's restoration work comes in.

As everyone moves to the Apple Studios on Savile Row, the initial idea behind the filming (documenting the songwriting process of 14 tracks for a TV special to air before a final live concert by the band) turns into the decision to drop the television special altogether and instead record an new album. The atmosphere at Apple Studios feels distinctly more relaxed. The reconciliation with Harrison and the arrival of the "fifth Beatle", Billy Preston, seem to breathe new life and substance into the project. Here Jackson occasionally gets carried away showing one jam too many, but the dialogue and laughter that accompany them restore a truth partly lost in Lindsay-Hogg's film: the Beatles are still capable of having fun and living up to their name through good teamwork.

What stands out, in hindsight, as a particularly positive choice on Jackson's part is that he resisted the temptation to intersperse the archive material with present-day interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

Throughout the entire runtime of "Get Back", you really do get the feeling of being a fly on the wall, ready to eavesdrop and watch everything that happens, tied to a continuum that never strays, not even for a moment, from the Swinging London of January 1969. Paradoxically, it's precisely in this absence of any dialogue between past and present, in this limited spatio-temporal focus, that Jackson's work expresses an undeniable relevance today: by choosing to show "as much as possible" of that precise moment, the New Zealand director highlights everything that makes universal (and therefore timeless) the humanity of four human beings grappling with their squabbles and their enthusiasms.

As you watch them, their squabbles and their enthusiasms become your own too, and, despite the sheer length of the viewing experience, a sense of comfort creeps in, a dissolving of the distance separating us from those times and places. Credit is due, of course, to the coolness of the Fab Four, as well as to their knack for always staying somehow tuned in to their present moment (the social commentary in the original lyrics of "Get Back", later trimmed down, the recurring references to Martin Luther King's speech, following his recent assassination) — but it's also worth giving Jackson credit for the merit of a choice as simple as it is effective.

The third part is where the project changes shape once again. The idea of one last live performance resurfaces, perhaps in a setting that requires neither long journeys nor a huge deployment of resources, yet still carries a certain allure of boldness. The idea takes hold of a surprise concert on the rooftop of the very studios on Savile Row, while the footage could be gathered into a film for theatrical release, even though everything was shot on 16mm television format rather than the 35mm more befitting cinematic standards (a quirk that may also explain Jackson's choice to make this "Get Back" a product designed for home streaming).

In the preparation for the live show, flashes of warmth and serenity emerge that are heartwarming: Heather (Linda Eastman-McCartney's daughter) pops up in the studio, helping everyone not take themselves too seriously; Billy Preston is invited to the listening sessions as if he were a permanent member of the team; there's laughter, and no one dwells on the moment when the story might come to an end. It's practically like stepping into another film, with another band as the protagonist — something extremely reassuring for the viewer who has sat through more than 400 minutes of "who knows what will become of us", the true, none-too-hidden mantra of the whole work.

The rest is history, clinging to the rooftop of a building in central London and to the feeling that, in a perfect world, none of this should ever have had to end.

There, after eight hours of viewing, lies the true strength of Jackson's documentary and, ultimately, of the story of the Beatles: it leaves you wanting to see more.