The Beatles Get Back: Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Ringos' Trilogy is Phenomenal
By Jim Slotek
Rating: A
Much as professional photographers will take countless shots of the sky before capturing lightning, Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back on Disney+ asks hours of immersion before giving up its miracle moments.
Over three episodes, there are nearly eight hours of John, Paul, George and Ringo, mostly in studio in January, 1969, creating and shaping 14 new songs for what was meant to be their combined album-recording/return to the concert stage.
And if the rest were dross (and it very much isn’t), it would be worth it for the scene where Paul McCartney sits on a chair earnestly pounding out a bass riff, that his mates initially ignore.
Suddenly, he blurts out the words, “Get back, get back, get back, to where you once belonged.” John Lennon and George Harrison sit, still unimpressed. Ringo Starr joins in the lyric. Harrison begins to follow the chord progression. Finally, Lennon picks up his guitar and begins to noodle some lead riffs of his own.
Thus, is born, in a few minutes, the bare bones of one of the most recognizable pop songs of the past century. It’s like hanging with the Beatles in person for hours and watching and listening to them create. One minute, “Get Back” (which was originally intended as an anti-anti-immigrant statement) doesn’t exist. Five minutes later it does.
And it’s not the only time this happens. There is so much going on in The Beatles: Get Back, culled as it is from nearly 60 hours of footage of this ambitious, 22-day writing-and-recording session. Every song tells a story, and the journey each song takes - from noodling to polished future classic - tells a story of its own about the four lads playing (five, if you count brilliant young keyboard player Billy Preston, who joins the Beatles part-way through the project).
In a sense, The Beatles: Get Back is a spectacular reboot of a story that’s already been told differently. The 1970 movie Let It Be was director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s own feature-length documentary of the same experience, using footage taken by his own crew, 18 months after the fact.
By that time, the band was no more, and the narrative was that Lennon’s soon-to-be-wife Yoko Ono had broken up The Beatles. So, there was a sourness to that movie, with Yoko’s presence hanging over every session like a cloud. Arguably, Lindsay-Hogg edited to that narrative in much the way the character of a contestant on Big Brother can be shaped to villainy in the editing room.
Maybe Jackson’s mostly joyful and playful depiction of life in the studio is also a narrative. But these Beatles are more like characters in a wry sitcom (with the occasional bit of drama as when George quits briefly). Yes, Yoko is there (she even sings at one point). But she has her sweet moments, sharing gum with Ringo, happily chatting with Linda McCartney, celebrating her divorce from her first husband by passionately kissing John mid-song. Maureen Starkey, Ringo’s then wife, is also there at times, as are children.
And of course, there’s the famous Savile Row rooftop concert, which is handled much differently, and with more humour. The interaction with the London bobbies is especially sitcom-like.
But much of the miracle is technical. Originally shot in 16 mm (and magnified to grainy 35 mm in Let It Be), the footage was digitally improved to HD quality, and the audio is similarly Peter Jackson-ized, making The Beatles: Get Back into a remarkably intimate time-machine experience.
The Beatles: Get Back. Directed by Peter Jackson from footage by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Starring John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Three episodes premiere on Disney+ on consecutive days from November 25-27.