Peter Viney's Blog

Directed by Peter Jackson
Disney Plus, 25 November 2021

This is not a coherent review, but rather random observations on the film. The last couple of months have seen acres of newsprint devoted to the whole Let It Be / Get Back story. I had considered doing the original Let It Be album in the series Reviled! The Albums Critics Love To Hate on the Around and Around site. There was just too much of it. I thought of the Phil Spector embellished original album, and I could never afford the deluxe boxed edition of that. Paul McCartney restored the album to its pre-Spector intervention state in 2003 as Let It Be Naked. Then the new 5 CD / 1 bluray Let It Be box set has a Giles Martin remix of the album, the Get Back LP of the 1969 Glyn Johns mixes and album order, 2 CDs of outtakes and rehearsals and a new Let It Be EP. I knew that was on its way. I also know there are said to be EIGHTY-SEVEN bootleg CDs containing every recorded minute of those sessions.

The original Let It Be film by Michael Lindsay-Hogg was soon withdrawn, it was never released on video or DVD. I saw it twice at the time but never since. It was a miserable experience.

The Beatles’ 1970 album Let It Be and its depressing accompanying documentary were always bugbears among the former Fabs. John Lennon dismissed the music as “badly recorded shit”; Paul McCartney was so horrified by the album that he masterminded a new version in 2003, shorn of the additions by Phil Spector, whom Lennon employed as a producer without telling McCartney. None of the Beatles turned up to the documentary’s premiere; Ringo Starr objected that it was “very narrow” and had “no joy”
Alex Petridis, The Guardian 25 November 2021.

Peter Jackson may have an editing issue … this is the man who turned The Hobbit into three films, and who brought out a King Kong double the length of the original. He is also a brilliant director. The surviving Beatle pair are said to be delighted by the film, and Paul McCartney has spoken at length about how there was more joy and friendship than he remembered because the atmosphere of the Lindsay-Hogg film was so embedded in his memory. I can’t go back and compare the original, but in Part One, the McCartney-Harrison conflict simmers for days before erupting. The “I’ll play whatever you tell me to” line from George was very early. The stalk out was days later. I recall the Lindsay-Hogg version cutting them right together.

The first point. Part one is two and a half hours. The whole is eight hours, and yes, it is way too long for the average person who likes and is interested in The Beatles, but is not an obsessive. You have to be used to the situation of rehearsals … a band trying to get music together consists of piddling about on instruments separately, a perennial problem getting people to focus on one thing. A film set is similar in that there is a lot of hanging around and waiting … this is both a rehearsal studio and a film set. If you’re not used to that, it is in a word, boring. We watched it over two nights because Karen, who is intrigued by The Beatles, but not obsessive, found it boring after an hour and a half. Looking at online comments, a number of people split it over two nights.

But I am a Beatles obsessive so random thoughts in no particular order.

Paul McCartney is the clear leader. The Guardian calls him ‘passive-aggressive’ but I identify. We used to do weekly drama sketch shows for EFL students. We repeated sketches in a 12 week cycle, but also added new ones. We had two hours rehearsal for a 90 minute show. Some was just memory jogging. Some wasn’t. Karen is a perfectionist and would want to keep rehearsing a sequence. I had my eye constantly on ‘The show starts at eight.’ Everyone in the show took the piss out of my constant hassling to get on to the next sketch with the line, ‘There’s a lot still to do tonight …’ They still take the piss out of that line. So I identify totally with Paul. He has his eye on the need to write and record an album in fourteen days and then perform it live … somewhere. Yes, OK, mess about with a random old song (You Win Again) you’re not going to do, but only for so long.

Then the three outstanding songs in the film are Get Back, Lt It Be, Long and Winding Road. All three are by Paul McCartney.

Then I, Me, Mine and For You Blue are also strong, and by George Harrison

Across The Universe had been written already by Lennon.
Don’t Let Me Down was Lennon’s main contribution, and appears an inordinate number of times in the films. Spector dropped it from the album, weirdly as it’s such a strong song.

George Harrison … the silent one. He is quietly seething. He is not getting his songs on the album or seriously considered. It became obvious that Paul had a problem with John Lennon, largely stoned and uninterested, and was directing the instructions / complaints at John by appearing to direct them through George. After they try I, Me, Mine (one of the stronger songs), George says, I don’t give a fuck if you don’t want it. He was used to it. 

A point Karen made (noticing these things) is that George’s hair looked clean and blow dried every day. The others not so.

John Lennon is there in body. Stoned. Not interested, contributing little. This is winding Paul up. John comes to sudden life on the last day, singing head to head with Paul on Two of Us. George watches. I see it as the last straw. Once John and Paul get together, he’s out in the cold. Once George walks out John is manic, over excited, weird. Yoko gets up and starts wailing and screaming into the mic. Paul says Get back in the bloody bag. I have spoken to two musicians who were in Hamburg at the same time as The Beatles. This was years apart, but both said the same things. Ringo was the best drummer in any of the bands. Ringo was the ONLY nice guy. The other three were described with extreme negativity, and Lennon was the nastiest of the lot. Always aggressive. After George stalks out, Lennon dismisses it sharply with If he doesn’t get back by Tuesday, we get Clapton. Is this ironic? Hiding the pain? Does he mean it? That is where it fascinates.

Ringo Starr is the observer. He has no song writing investment. He just tries to fit in. He is present as Paul demonstrates Get Back, clapping. At one he plays a bit of piano (a surprise). One of them (Lindsay-Hogg?) says to George Martin that Ringo’s the easiest to get along with. General agreement. He is also, still, one of the best rock drummers ever.

The women On the day of the blow-up, three partners are in the studio … Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney, Maureen Starkey. Linda has a role, taking photos (her day job) and Peter Jackson does far too many cut-aways to her clicking away with the Nikon. Linda and Maureen appear on the last day, we see Yoko and Linda chatting cheerfully. It was no doubt a reaction to the omnipresent Yoko, inches from John at all times, silent, messing around with cards. Maureen and Linda must have decided to attend the last day of this sequence too, but Patti Boyd is not present. Reviews say there wasn’t as much resentment of Yoko as they’d thought. Yoko is 25% of Apple. I suspect Jackson cut carefully. I would have been incredibly pissed off if I were Paul, George or Ringo.

Previews of later songs. Harrison does All Things Must Pass, John does Gimmee Some Truth, Paul does a little bit of Another Day. All solo album material. Then they work on She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, which ended up on Abbey Road.

There are also a bewildering number of two line or more bits from early songs and abandoned songs.

The covers

Right at the start … two Dylan songs with The Band connections … The Mighty Quinn and I Shall Be Released. Then John picks out The Third Man Theme on guitar at some length … a tune the Band were to cover four years later. You Win Again surprised me too.

Equipment – they are exercised about the 4-track recorder EMI supplied and ask for an 8 track. They complain The Beach Boys had 8-track, but that’s because ‘they’re American.’ On sponsorship, George complains that ‘They won’t even give us a free Fender amp.’ OK, but when you’re using Gibson and Gretsch guitars and a Hofner bass, you may need to realise that Fender sponsorship came in those days in matching sets of guitars (as in The Shadows and then later with Burns guitars).

Instruments I always suspected that the McCartney Hofner violin bass was merely for show on stage and McCartney used a Fender Precision Bass in the studio (there are photos with one). Not so here, but then he is on film. In  my memory, a Hofner violin bass was about £50 in 1963. A Fender Precision was £135, and I would say that represents the quality difference too (I had a Hofner President). Now a Hofner Violin Bass costs way more than say a Fender Squire Precision, but I think that’s fashion accessory pricing. They had a soft tone which I disliked.

The interest for me was seeing a Fender 6-string bass in the studio, which both George and John play on various numbers. The usual credits only refer to John on 6-string bass, but in the film George has a go too (and I thought does better). They discuss the issue of Paul needing to play piano live, and mention Billy Preston.  Or Paul could play piano, and one could play bass. ‘We only need one guitar’ upsets both guitarists.

Both Paul and George are filmed playing drums … Paul during a Yoko wailing session.

Get Back The best bit of the film is Paul demonstrating Get Back, using a bass guitar as a rhythm guitar and playing chords (something I saw John Wetton do on stage). They start off without John Lennon who arrives later. Then there’s working on the lyrics, intercut with headlines about Enoch Powell to demonstrate that it’s an anti-Powell song NOT an anti-immigrant song, and it is even on the UK / USA with Pakistanis and Puerto Ricans as the immigrants. Great stuff revealed. Then it mutates into a different song, Commonwealth. Why didn’t they put that run through on the new box-set? My mind is boggled.

Mr Epstein They all refer to the late Brian Epstein as Mr Epstein. Is it ironic? An in-joke?  It seems natural and accustomed.

Dick James turns up to boast about buying up music catalogues. Paul is paying attention. Dick James does not get their tone and asides.

Michael Lindsay-Hogg as director comes across as a prat with a stuck record communication policy. 

Michael Lindsay-Hogg to The Beatles: I know your albums are good. 

Ouch!

Michael Lindsay-Hogg to Ringo: I don’t want you to be unhappy because I love you just like I love your three colleagues.

I know he later did The Concert in Central Park and Graceland videos for Paul Simon, and has a great track record. The original Let It Be film is remembered as a disaster … but Peter Jackson is not filming, but cutting and editing Lindsay-Hogg’s material.  The worst aspect is Lindsay-Hogg’s insistence on doing a concert in Libya in a Roman theatre in front of ‘2000 Arabs.’ He won’t let it go. I caught early on that their responses are merely polite. No one has any intention of doing it, but he won’t give up. He is obviously trying to drum up the other three against Paul’s more direct refusal. He hasn’t figured that in 1969, 2000 Libyans meant 2000 men, and The Beatles most filmable live responses came from female audiences. Also, if they could have timed the concert a few months later, I’m thinking 1^st September, they could have been there for Colonel Gaddafi’s coup d’etat.

So … two parts to go. I think we need to leave part two for a couple of days. Part 3 is said to be the best with the complete rooftop concert. 

CONTINUED … click on the links

FOR PART TWO GO TO: GET BACK (PART 2)
FOR PART THREE GO TO: GET BACK (PART 3)

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Full review of the LET IT BE album in the Reviled series at Around and Around (linked)