The Beatles "Get Back" Trailer

[16251]

I've been watching first episode. I know it's the Beatles, it is history, It is cool. I think I would of preferred a condensed version and then offer the rest of the content separately.

[MathOfInsects]

I'm maybe three quarters of the way through the first episode, in a couple of sittings.

 

The fact that I am able to say that says something in itself.

 

I'm not 100% sure it's really a "documentary" in the way I'd use the term. It's something of a time-capsule, and I appreciate the context for the "the record" (by which I mean the historical record, but it also applies to the actual one). But I think it either needed to be split into more parts, with some kind of thematic tie for each episode, or some harder editorial decisions had to be made. (16251 posted something similar as I typed this.) I mean, just because THEY had three weeks to make the record, doesn't mean WE have to have three weeks to watch the movie about it.

 

I found the ticking clock element infuriating. For me, it allowed for a sort of abdication of the filmmaker's role in culling or organizing the material. Again I'd have maybe preferred to see themed episodes charting certain songs or elements from beginning to end. I wouldn't even have minded if that amounted to more hours than this in the end.

 

I hadn't completely realized how openly and often they talked about what we all know now, after the fact, which was that basically from the day Epstein died, they were not functionally a band any more. I mean, WE know it. I just didn't realize they knew it, or rather continued to think it even as they navigated the second half of their recording career. (John had proposed breaking up right after he died.) And hearing them aware of his "daddy" role took me surprise; I thought we kind of put that all together after the fact. (Same with Martin.)

 

Whenever I've read about this time in the Beatles' history, I've always come away with the idea that their mutual distaste for being beholden to one another artistically was mostly internal, and played out through various members acting out. It was revelatory to hear them discuss it like it was just one more fact about The Beatles as an entity, same as any other data point.

 

Many of my perceptions mirror comments already made here:

 

Their affection for and comfort with one another are evident, even as they had all quit the band multiple times by then.

 

John's drugged sogginess dampening his fertile brain was really hard to watch. He just seemed so done, spiritually.

 

George's "I'll play anything you want" benefits from more context, for sure. And I hadn't heard Paul refer to himself as the boss before, nor had I heard them explicitly say "every album since Brian died has been 'well, let's just get it together for one last one.'" Funny since that's exactly how Paul got them all together again for Abbey Road--a masterpiece IMO and testament to McCartney's visionary genius.

 

Ringo's gameness is awesome. He still comes across as "the pro," and it was funny to hear them call him that, even though he'd been a Beatle longer than he'd been a freelancer before them.

 

Paul is clearly the most driven, and the fact that he was usually "right" would not have done a thing to temper how annoying his absolute certainty that his musical thoughts are ALWAYS right, would have been to the two spectacular songwriters he was in a band with.

 

I loved how all-in they always were on any idea that came out of anyone's face or instrument. They practically "thought" together. It was cool.

 

Completely agree with [Joe's?] comment about Michael Lindsey-Hogg's meddlesome part in all this. He nigh on broke them all up with his tone-deaf determination to make the TV show fit his vision.

 

I'll finish episode 1 just to say I did, but I'm not sure I'm in a rush to get to episode 2. I'll eventually watch it all, but probably just like this, in small doses, to keep it from being such a slog.

[zxcvbnm098]

I'm maybe three quarters of the way through the first episode, in a couple of sittings.

 

The fact that I am able to say that says something in itself.

 

I'm not 100% sure it's really a "documentary" in the way I'd use the term. It's something of a time-capsule, and I appreciate the context for the "the record" (by which I mean the historical record, but it also applies to the actual one). But I think it either needed to be split into more parts, with some kind of thematic tie for each episode, or some harder editorial decisions had to be made. (16251 posted something similar as I typed this.) I mean, just because THEY had three weeks to make the record, doesn't mean WE have to have three weeks to watch the movie about it.

 

I found the ticking clock element infuriating. For me, it allowed for a sort of abdication of the filmmaker's role in culling or organizing the material. Again I'd have maybe preferred to see themed episodes charting certain songs or elements from beginning to end. I wouldn't even have minded if that amounted to more hours than this in the end.

 

I hadn't completely realized how openly and often they talked about what we all know now, after the fact, which was that basically from the day Epstein died, they were not functionally a band any more. I mean, WE know it. I just didn't realize they knew it, or rather continued to think it even as they navigated the second half of their recording career. (John had proposed breaking up right after he died.) And hearing them aware of his "daddy" role took me surprise; I thought we kind of put that all together after the fact. (Same with Martin.)

 

Whenever I've read about this time in the Beatles' history, I've always come away with the idea that their mutual distaste for being beholden to one another artistically was mostly internal, and played out through various members acting out. It was revelatory to hear them discuss it like it was just one more fact about The Beatles as an entity, same as any other data point.

 

Many of my perceptions mirror comments already made here:

 

Their affection for and comfort with one another are evident, even as they had all quit the band multiple times by then.

 

John's drugged sogginess dampening his fertile brain was really hard to watch. He just seemed so done, spiritually.

 

George's "I'll play anything you want" benefits from more context, for sure. And I hadn't heard Paul refer to himself as the boss before, nor had I heard them explicitly say "every album since Brian died has been 'well, let's just get it together for one last one.'" Funny since that's exactly how Paul got them all together again for Abbey Road--a masterpiece IMO and testament to McCartney's visionary genius.

 

Ringo's gameness is awesome. He still comes across as "the pro," and it was funny to hear them call him that, even though he'd been a Beatle longer than he'd been a freelancer before them.

 

Paul is clearly the most driven, and the fact that he was usually "right" would not have done a thing to temper how annoying his absolute certainty that his musical thoughts are ALWAYS right, would have been to the two spectacular songwriters he was in a band with.

 

I loved how all-in they always were on any idea that came out of anyone's face or instrument. They practically "thought" together. It was cool.

 

Completely agree with [Joe's?] comment about Michael Lindsey-Hogg's meddlesome part in all this. He nigh on broke them all up with his tone-deaf determination to make the TV show fit his vision.

 

I'll finish episode 1 just to say I did, but I'm not sure I'm in a rush to get to episode 2. I'll eventually watch it all, but probably just like this, in small doses, to keep it from being such a slog.

 

For those who have made it (or are still slogging) through Episode 1, hang in there; it gets better. And easier to watch, or at least less tedious. I finally watched the last hour, which is basically the rooftop stuff. It's fantastic. My god they were great.....and I read somewhere online that the temperature for that day was 46 degrees. Crazy....

[nursers]

 

MOI - Episode 2 and 3 are MUCH better

[Bobadohshe]

But I think it either needed to be split into more parts, with some kind of thematic tie for each episode, or some harder editorial decisions had to be made. (16251 posted something similar as I typed this.) I mean, just because THEY had three weeks to make the record, doesn't mean WE have to have three weeks to watch the movie about it.

 

I heard they did a 100 minute edit for the premiere. I would love to see that.

[Adan]

The documentary should come with a giant caveat: "Warning! The first episode will make you want to kick your dog!" Seriously, the first 3 hours are a big downer, some would say tedious. If you didn't already know how the story turns out, you wouldn't imagine it's even possible.

 

The directorial decision to put the viewer through 3 hours of that is certainly questionable, but in the end I think defensible as the most artistically honest approach, because it comes closest to recreating how the band itself experienced it. Maybe some viewers never make it to episode 2, but those who do are more richly rewarded for their patience.

 

When they move to the new studio, ditch the TV show idea and the douchebag promoter, and get BP in the room, it feels like rainbows and unicorns. I suppose it's a spoiler to write that, but not really, because you have to know that something very significant happened between the disastrous beginnings and what you hear on the Let it Be album.

[Bill H.]

Peter Jackson has an 18 hour director's cut that he's threatening to release at some point, so this isn't going in the direction of getting any shorter.

 

But hey... it's the Beatles. As hard as it was for me to get through Part 1, it's all gotta be there. There was over 60 hours of original footage, so he has trimmed it down quite a bit.

[Franz Schiller]

I really think that Peter Jackson made this series for us Beatles superfans. My girlfriend watched it with me, and for her, the first 2/3rds were pretty tiresome. But for ME, it was amazing to see this...even the boring bits. I could never in my wildest dreams have imagined being in the room like that with these talented people. Just getting a sense for what it was like to hang out with them was so cool. So much fun!

 

But the end was absolutely spectacular. Even my girlfriend loved it. The Beatles playing live âin color, and just having a ball performing togetherâwas simply thrilling.

[Joe Muscara]

Episode One ended when it did because it was a cliffhanger*. I suspected it would be and for once in my life, I was correct.

 

 

 

*Not that any of us didn't know it was going to resolve, but it was a key story point and it was interesting to see how it did resolve, and what happened with the band before it did.

[BRW]

 

...when the cigarette smoking ramps up. Interesting to observe my own reaction and revulsion at that. Never smoked tobacco myself but certainly spent countless hours in rooms where everyone else was. Now I can't even be around it, and just seeing it on screen makes me cringe. A lot has changed.

 

It was a different time, for sure (smoking on planes etc.). Everything stank. Rehearsal spaces, clubs and venues, bars. All the keyboards had yellow keys and cigarette stains. You bought someone's used instrument and it stank. Even today you see people write "used in a non-smoking environment" on eBay auctions.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

Josh, I think your observations regarding episode one (certainly the dreariest and most tense of the three parts) are all very on point.

 

But I just can't see it with the "this needed to be more organized, this needed to be shorter," any of that, no matter how many times I hear it.

 

All I've ever wanted since I was a kid just getting into music seriously was to be able to sit in a room with my favorite band while they worked. As tumultuous as this experience is, I cherished every moment. I will watch it again, and I would watch whatever additional material might eventually be released.

 

Honestly, if I have any gripes, it's how few full performances we get of any of the songs. I understand during the earlier episodes -- how many times do we really want to hear them rehearse I've Got a Feeling in its entirety, especially given that we get the whole song twice in the rooftop concert? But I think one full run-through of Let It Be in the entire nine hours would have been nice.

 

Then again, those complete performances have long been available elsewhere, so it's not like anything was left on the cutting room floor that we don't already have access to. But I do think the film asks the viewer to come to it with a certain amount of knowledge and experience, which is not necessarily made clear when you get the quick overview of the Beatles history from 1956-1969 at the top of episode one.

[zxcvbnm098]

A very in-depth overview of the original production and PJ version and timelines. Very detailed and interesting....

 

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/making-beatles-let-it-be-and-peter-jacksons-get-back-peter-jacksons-beatles-get-back

[MathOfInsects]

Josh, I think your observations regarding episode one (certainly the dreariest and most tense of the three parts) are all very on point.

 

But I just can't see it with the "this needed to be more organized, this needed to be shorter," any of that, no matter how many times I hear it.

 

All I've ever wanted since I was a kid just getting into music seriously was to be able to sit in a room with my favorite band while they worked. As tumultuous as this experience is, I cherished every moment. I will watch it again, and I would watch whatever additional material might eventually be released.

 

Honestly, if I have any gripes, it's how few full performances we get of any of the songs. I understand during the earlier episodes -- how many times do we really want to hear them rehearse I've Got a Feeling in its entirety, especially given that we get the whole song twice in the rooftop concert? But I think one full run-through of Let It Be in the entire nine hours would have been nice.

 

Then again, those complete performances have long been available elsewhere, so it's not like anything was left on the cutting room floor that we don't already have access to. But I do think the film asks the viewer to come to it with a certain amount of knowledge and experience, which is not necessarily made clear when you get the quick overview of the Beatles history from 1956-1969 at the top of episode one.

 

That"s the thing. Imagine a version of this that charted the development of each of those songs from inception to execution. THAT would be thrilling and interesting to me. Then you could have an hour of just 'The Beatles Together' and you"d still get your fly-on-the-wall moments. Or one about George quitting, or Ringo"s moments, or John and Yoko, or Paul"s dual role as glue and grenade. Etc. I would have appreciated some sifting, and wouldn"t have cared if it ended up as 15 hours instead of 9, in that case. I think the 'flaw' was doing it reality-show style with the ticking clock.

[AnotherScott]

That"s the thing. Imagine a version of this that charted the development of each of those songs from inception to execution. THAT would be thrilling and interesting to me. Then you could have an hour of just 'The Beatles Together' and you"d still get your fly-on-the-wall moments. Or one about George quitting, or Ringo"s moments, or John and Yoko, or Paul"s dual role as glue and grenade. Etc. I would have appreciated some sifting, and wouldn"t have cared if it ended up as 15 hours instead of 9, in that case. I think the 'flaw' was doing it reality-show style with the ticking clock.

I have to disagree about this one, because I think some of what makes the footage centered on the songs more interesting is seeing it in the context of everything else that was happening. Also, I don't think you could really as effectively group all footage about topic A together, and topic B somewhere else, because everything tends to intertwine. And related to that, I think what we get here is more "real," i.e. the way topics are revisited over time, influenced by the very fact that time has passed as well as the other things that have happened in the interim, a sense you would not get if all the related bits had been compressed into something that would come across more as a single self-contained situation. If instead the items had not been presented chronologically, to really get a sense of what had gone on, I think it would almost have been a a Memento-style "puzzle" experience, where the viewer would have to figure out how all the pieces fit together. That said, I do think it could have been tightened up some. And also, if indeed there is actually enough footage of a given song to really map its development as you describe (which we don't really see, currently), I wouldn't mind seeing some "supplemental" material along those lines. But as something more, as opposed to a replacemeht for the chrnological overall presentation, which tells its own story (even though it may not be the story that more interests you).

 

A couple of my own other takeaways...

 

Probably no surprise to the superfans who've read the books that describe every recording session, but I was surprised to see how many Abbey Road songs were in the works here. They came in with seemingly little, and in a few weeks time, had bits for Let It Be, Abbey Road, and some of their early solo album stuff. To some extent, it seems, the only distinction between what ended up on Abbey Road vs. ending up on Let It Be was which ones they happened to finish first. (ETA: though wikipedia tells me that some of the snippets dated back to the White Album, too. Though there's also some irony in the fact that they went back to a really old song of theirs--One After 909--because they were having trouble coming up with enough new songs!)

 

They really do love playing the stuff they grew up with, even after building a decade's worth of their own strong repertoire. In itself, not so surprising I guess... probably most of us who work on original material still really enjoy playing what we've always loved. But it made me also realize that their later solo albums of covers (Lennon's Rock and Roll, McCartney's CHOBA B CCCP) were really labors of love as well, and not merely fluff/filler in their catalogs.

 

And one I wish I could remember. Some off-hand comment by Linda at the end of one of the segments really struck me at the time, and for the life of me, right now, I can't remember what it was!

[BRW]

Nice to see that silvery suitcase Rhodes in episode two. 'The prototype I had wasn"t any good'.

[AnotherScott]

Interesting piece here...

 

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/michael-lindsay-hogg-director-let-it-be-get-back-1235130999/

[miden]

I caught the first episode on the weekend and although good, it did drag on a bit tbh...

[nursers]

Interesting piece here...

 

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/michael-lindsay-hogg-director-let-it-be-get-back-1235130999/

 

 

That was breat, thanks for sharing Scott!

[SteveCoscia]

Interesting piece here...

 

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/michael-lindsay-hogg-director-let-it-be-get-back-1235130999/

 

Yes, interesting.

 

Even though Michael Lindsay-Hogg says in this article that: 'People are still living on confused memories of what was happening back then. 'Let It Be" is not a breakup movie."

 

I disagree with this statement. The 'Let It Be" vibe was not a positive one - this fed a myth about the Beatles' feelings toward each other that lasted for decades. This myth was not dispelled until the recent Peter Jackson piece featured their mutual affection and fun-loving interaction.

 

Just my opinion.

[zxcvbnm098]

Interesting piece here...

 

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/michael-lindsay-hogg-director-let-it-be-get-back-1235130999/

 

Yes, interesting.

 

Even though Michael Lindsay-Hogg says in this article that: 'People are still living on confused memories of what was happening back then. 'Let It Be" is not a breakup movie."

 

I disagree with this statement. The 'Let It Be" vibe was not a positive one - this fed a myth about the Beatles' feelings toward each other that lasted for decades. This myth was not dispelled until the recent Peter Jackson piece featured their mutual affection and fun-loving interaction.

 

Just my opinion.

 

I think one of the things that confused people at the time was the timing of the release of the Let It Be movie and the album, which came after the Abbey Road album, but of course was recorded and filmed before AR.

 

So if you were knowing back then the Beatles broke up, and you saw a movie that could be assumed was the last thing they did, it is understandable that people has that mindset going in; it's a movie chronicling their breakup.

[techristian]

I saw the whole thing over about 5 evenings. It could have been edited a bit more. I'll give it 3 stars......and I bought almost every Beatle album.

 

Dan

[harmonizer]

If I could come back in another life as another singer and sing two lines of rock and roll, it would be

"All these years I've been wandering around, wondering how come nobody told me

All that I was looking for was somebody who looked like you".

 

I was awed watching McCartney scream through this bridge of "I've Got a Feeling" multiple times during rehearsal, with an intensity similar to what he delivered in the rooftop performance.

[CowboyNQ]

Coming a bit later to the party than most - finally have found the time to get through episode 1 in two sittings.

 

I am NOT a Beatles super fan just an average admirer and I have to say I found it fascinating.

 

Noteworthy for me was Paul"s frustration at having to be the 'boss' while simultaneously realising that his taking on a strong leadership role was a necessity. He wears the mantle comfortably.

 

Other things that struck me were the band"s genuine affection for each other and their sense of humour despite the pressures they were labouring under.

 

Looking forward to ep 2 - just have to sequester the time to watch it!

[jazzpiano88]

I just watched Part 2.  Apologizes if this inappropriately resurrects any unwanted discussion.

 

Bringing Billy Preston into the Beatles is fascinating, watching them agog as it immediately changed their sound for the better ("you're hired").

 

Paul to Billy:  "Do you play Violin?" 

 

Probable (very appropriate) followup questions for Billy:

   "Do you play guitar?" 

   "Do you have a girlfriend?"