The Beatles: Get Back
The
Beatles: Get Back is an upcoming three-part documentary series directed and
produced by Peter Jackson. It covers the making of the Beatles' 1970 album Let
It Be, which had the working title of Get Back, and draws from material
originally captured for Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 1970 documentary of the album.
Conceived originally as a feature film, each episode of The Beatles: Get Back
is about two hours in length, making up a total of six hours.
Jackson
characterised The Beatles: Get Back as "a documentary about a
documentary". Commentators have described it as challenging longtime
beliefs that the making of Let It Be was marked entirely by tensions between
the Beatles, showing a more upbeat side of the production. It will premiere on
Disney+ consecutively on 25, 26 and 27 November 2021.
Production
of The Beatles: Get Back employed film restoration techniques developed for
Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old. Over 55 hours of footage and 140 hours of
audio stemming from the original Let It Be film project were made available to
Jackson's team. In reference to the long-reported acrimony surrounding the
original Get Back project, Jackson wrote in a press statement that he was
"relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth ... Sure,
there's moments of drama – but none of the discord this project has long been
associated with."
Jackson
spent around four years in a darkened suite editing the series. It was created
with cooperation from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon
(Yoko Ono) and George Harrison (Olivia Harrison), as well as music supervisor
Giles Martin (son of George Martin and a regular producer of Beatles projects
since 2006). In a news release, McCartney said: "I am really happy that
Peter has delved into our archives to make a film that shows the truth about
the Beatles recording together", while Starr echoed: "There was hours
and hours of us just laughing and playing music, not at all like the Let It Be
film that came out [in 1970]. There was a lot of joy and I think Peter will
show that."
The final
cut covers 21 days in the studio with the Beatles as they rehearse for a
forthcoming album, concert and film project, and climaxes with the full
42-minute rooftop concert. Jackson described the series as "a documentary
about a documentary", as well as a "tougher" one than Let It Be,
since it includes controversial events such as Harrison's brief resignation
from the band, which the original film had not covered. With the exception of
specific shots where no alternative exists, most of the material that had been
featured in Let It Be was not reused in Get Back, and the series primarily used
footage captured from alternative camera angles in the case of sequences shared
between the two works. According to Jackson, this choice was made out of a
desire to "not step on Let It Be's toes so that it is still a film that
has a reason to exist, and our [series] will be a supplement to it".
Filmmakers
convinced Disney+ to allow for swearing to be included in the documentary
series. According to Jackson: "The Beatles are scouse boys and they freely
swear but not in an aggressive or sexual way."
Release
The project
was announced on 30 January 2019, the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles'
rooftop concert. On 11 March 2020, The Walt Disney Studios announced they had
acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Jackson's documentary, now titled
The Beatles: Get Back. It was initially set to be released as a film by Walt
Disney Studios Motion Pictures on 4 September 2020 in the United States and
Canada, with a global release to follow.[14] On 12 June 2020, it was pushed
back to 27 August 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 17 June
2021, it was announced that The Beatles: Get Back would instead be released as
a three-part documentary series on Disney+ on the Thanksgiving weekend of 25,
26 and 27 November 2021, with each episode being about two hours in length. On
16 November 2021, Paul McCartney attended the UK premiere of The Beatles: Get
Back.
Marketing
On 21
December 2020, a five-minute preview montage from the reproduced film,
presented by Jackson, was released on YouTube and Disney+.The video features
the band members dancing, doing impersonations, laughing, Lennon reading a
newspaper article about Harrison's encounter with a photographer, as well as Lennon
and McCartney "jokingly singing 'Two of Us' through gritted teeth". A
one-minute clip of the film was released on YouTube on 12 November, containing
a scene with the Beatles working on the song "I've Got a Feeling".
The release
was preceded by the publication of a book of the same name – the first official
book credited to the band since The Beatles Anthology (2000) – featuring an
introduction by Hanif Kureishi. The book was initially scheduled for 31 August
2021 to coincide with the initial August release of the documentary, but was
ultimately released on 12 October, ahead of the documentary.The documentary was
also preceded by the release of a remixed, deluxe edition box set of the Let It
Be album on October 15 by Apple Records.
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