• Let It Be

5/30/24 (Thurs)

I kept having déjà vu as I watched this, making me think I’ve seen it before. Apparently, though, my mind was playing tricks on me as the film reportedly had only limited release at the time and has never been shown publicly since. Peter Jackson’s three-part remix of the rest of the intended documentary footage, called Get Back, inspired a re-release of the film for the first time in more than half a century.

The documentary was intended to show the band in the process of creating a new work but came at a time when relations among the band members were not altogether friendly. George Harrison supposedly walked out during the filming with the intention of quitting the group, but seems to have been persuaded to return after a few days. That, however, was not evident at all from the film, which adeptly edited around his absence.

The atmosphere was nowhere near as bleak as rumor had it. It’s true that the movie was more or less the Paul McCartney Show as he dominated the others with musical ideas, song suggestions and general back-and-forth that was more forth than back. John and Ringo largely kept to themselves, but there was one tense exchange between Paul and George, who responded meekly that he would play or not play whatever and however Paul wanted. That may have been a factor behind George’s temporary walkout; George’s “I Me Mine” certainly sounds different in that context. Of course, it’s all colored by our knowledge in hindsight that the band is soon to break up; the final concert on the roof was their last public performance ever.

Still, there are plenty of light moments, the best being a spontaneous dance between John and Yoko that clearly caught the cameramen off guard. We also see songs coming together from brief snippets of ideas to fully formed numbers, though that only has meaning if you know the songs in the first place (which I presume applies to most viewers). One nice part shows George helping Ringo work on “Octopus’s Garden”, and Paul’s young stepdaughter brightens up the scene, including a playful moment when Ringo reacts in pseudo-shock to her drumming. I also enjoyed the swingy version of “Long and Winding Road”. The film seems to bear out George’s later claim that the mood improved immeasurably once he brought in Billy Preston. Nevertheless, we only know what we see, and we know now from Jackson’s version, which uses none of this footage, that things overall were in fact fairly easygoing.

In any case, the film is interesting on its own terms in showing the Beatles at work. I didn’t realize that “One After 909” was written by John at age 15, but it makes sense given the American rock-and-roll flavor that initially inspired the writers, like Picasso copying the masters in his youth. While they already had a distinctive sound at this point, the film shows them taking that to the next level. The best part of the film by far is the improvised rooftop concert. Scenes on the street in a London that was much more homogeneous (and much better dressed) than today were nostalgic in their own way. The view from a London that has become less British and more worldly itself gives food for thought. I’m not curious enough to want to watch hours more of this in Jackson’s version, but we’re lucky to have this on record.