PETER JACKSON’S THE BEATLES: GET BACK, cut from 60 hours of unseen footage and more than 150 hours of unheard audio originally shot and recorded for Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s May 1970-released film, Let It Be, will show on the Disney+ channel over three nights in the late autumn: November 25, 26 and 27, 2021.
The original film was doubly famous: for its presentation of the January 30, 1969, 3 Savile Row rooftop gig where the Beatles debuted several of the songs later included on their Let It Be album, and for the intra-band bickering that seemed to signal beginning of the end of the group.
But as the Lord Of The Rings director has been hinting since he first became involved in the project, his version tells a different story. “I was thinking, I’d love to make a Beatles film, but I don’t want to make the Beatles-breakup film,” he told Vanity Fair magazine. “That’s the one Beatles movie I would never want to make.”
But as Jackson pored over the rushes he had an unexpected response: “What I found is that I was laughing continuously. I just was laughing. I was laughing and laughing and laughing, and I didn’t stop.”
In Disney’s Get Back press release, Jackson adds:
“In many respects, Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s remarkable footage captured multiple storylines. The story of friends and of individuals. It is the story of human frailties and of a divine partnership. It is a detailed account of the creative process, with the crafting of iconic songs under pressure, set amid the social climate of early 1969. But it’s not nostalgia - it’s raw, honest, and human. Over six hours, you’ll get to know The Beatles with an intimacy that you never thought possible.”
A feature-length version was expected to debut in cinemas in 2020, before the pandemic intervened. The six-hour, three-part version promises three times the value to Beatles fans.
Ahead of the documentary’s Disney+ debut, Apple Corps Ltd./Callaway Arts & Entertainment will release The Beatles: Get Back book on October 12. A 240-page hardback features transcriptions of The Beatles’ recorded conversations and hundreds of unseen photos from the three weeks of sessions. An audio component is also expected.
The Beatles: Get Back – a rather exciting sneak peek...