How 'The Beatles: Get Back' reshapes history

the story of the beatles deserves a longer form vehicle to authentically explore the world they created i would love to see something more like a three-part movie series or even a high budget mini-series something that is missing from pretty much all of these movies is a thorough depiction of their creative process i know i'm probably asking for a lot well i guess i got my wish hello everyone after months of delays format changes massive anticipation the beatles get back has finally been released hopefully you've seen it all at this point and if you haven't go and watch it now because i'll be discussing i guess you could call them spoilers a lot of newly revealed information in this video i also appreciate your patience on this one i think youtube is a very reactive place and i didn't want to just do like a messy reaction video because this film means a lot to me and i just needed a bit of extra time to properly articulate and edit my thoughts on this one so thank you i would have been able to get this out earlier but i'm still working a part-time job which takes up half my time so if you'd like to help me move towards my goal of quitting my job and making videos full-time please consider supporting me on patreon you'll not only help me move towards my goal but you'll also get a bunch of great bonus content as well so check it out link in the description now before i begin on the series i should mention that i was lucky enough to attend a screening of the 100 minute version that's been shown as a kind of premiere in various cities around the world including the one paul mccartney attended my friend and film reviewer daniel lammon was kind enough to invite me along as his plus one and i was absolutely delighted to be able to witness this amazing event before the rest of the world by the way go and check out daniel's podcast incan paint a journey through disney's animated classics if you're into animation i think you'll really dig it now before i get my full thoughts on the three-part series i figured you might be interested to know exactly what was in the 100 minute version so upon arrival there was beatles music playing the lobby we took some awkward photos and then once the lights went down in the cinema we get a peter jackson home movie from 2003 which alludes to his love of the beatles right after that peter jackson greets us on screen to introduce the film he briefly gave context as to where the beatles are up to in their career at this point much like the three-part series but instead of a tightly edited montage it's just peter jackson summing it up for us he spoke about the original let it be and how it's a 16 millimeter film poorly blown up to 35 millimeter sacrificing the quality in the process and also mentioned how the original sound is in an underwhelming mono he played a clip on screen of the original letter b film that then transformed into the crystal clear quality of peter jackson's version so it went from dull dark and grainy to vibrant bright and clear and there was this audible gasp from the audience which was really cool he also discussed the way that the sound was improved through machine learning he showed the scene with lots of chatter and background noise and you can see george harrison kind of in the distance trying to say something completely inaudible then he plays it again with the machine learning edit and you can hear every word george is saying whilst keeping the atmosphere of the background intact he then showed this clip of a band rehearsal with everyone on their instruments and there's you know sound bleeding into all the mics but then managed to show us how they're able to teach an algorithm essentially what a guitar sounds like and they isolated the guitar they isolated the drums the bass the voices and it was just incredible to watch like this is clearly not technology that would have been available even five years ago then he finally introduced us to what we'd be seeing in this hundred minute version out of the 22 days of filming in january 1969 this hundred minute version only showed two days from that month january 27th so day 18 and january 30th day 22 aka the full rooftop performance jackson mentioned that he picked day 18 because they were now at apple with billy preston and they were finally able to get some productivity and goodwill in their songwriting and rehearsing it's a good choice and the decision behind including the full rooftop performance well that speaks for itself i think and just side note seeing the full rooftop performance in a movie theater with like proper sound holy [ __ ] it was incredible and finally if you're wondering if there was anything in the 100 minute version that wasn't in the disney plus version the answer is no unless you count all the clips of peter jackson discussing the film but otherwise if you've seen the series you've seen it all so now the three-part series in my last video i discussed my hopes for the beatles get back and if you missed that one you can check it out right here now there's quite a lot to unpack here so in keeping with the theme i'm going to split my thoughts up into three different parts with a conclusion at the end something i mentioned in my previous video is the incredible way get back looks i've seen a few people mention that the smoothing on their faces is very distracting and looks quite strange but i think that without it you'd have just a ton of film grain and other imperfections that just wouldn't mesh with the high quality production value that the film is going for i noticed it at the start every now and then when they do like a close-up their eyebrows often look like brush strokes but it's something i stopped noticing very quickly and was able to just marvel at how contemporary and modern it looks it feels like these shots could have been captured yesterday which also makes their clothing choices even more charming and funny another thing i was looking forward to was the sheer length of the project initially all we heard was that it was going to be a three-part series totaling about six hours what we got instead was a three-part series that runs for a total of seven hours 48 minutes now i've heard some people say oh it's too long how am i meant to watch all this well for someone like me and i'm sure for many of you i was happy for peter jackson to make it as long as he wanted however long he needed to tell the story properly and if we know anything about peter jackson is that he tends to make long movies out of epic stories and quite famously turns them into trilogies i actually loved the way it was paced out but i realized that for someone who's maybe just a casual beatles fan the runtime may seem a little bit daunting however i don't think the total sum is too much it's the way that it's split up that makes it feel really long what do i mean by this well let's compare the runtime to another show that was released this year that everyone seemed to binge in a matter of days netflix's squid game where the entire first season is only 17 minutes longer than the total run time of the beatles get back the difference is squid game like many other streaming shows split up its content into nine episodes roughly an hour each in length which makes it feel easier to accomplish it's a format that people are now used to this makes getback's trilogy format on a streaming platform a bit of an adjustment but i see this as a positive of the current age we're living in where a movie tv show documentary can be whatever it needs to be and i think peter jackson turned these 56 hours of footage into what it needed to be and trust me if we only got two hours or if we just got the 100 minute version it would not be enough to tell this story properly i think part of the genius of the beatles get back is the story that peter jackson was able to assemble out of those 56 hours of footage and as insufferable as he is in the film i'm a big i'm a bigger fan i must give credit to the original director michael lindsay hogg who was at times basically able to trick the beatles into forgetting they were being filmed and recorded by doing things like applying tape of the red light on the cameras and have his crew pretend to take a break all the while capturing absolute gold from the beatles but michael lindsay hogg whose outlandish ideas like having the beatles play in some ancient amphitheater in libya or an orphanage what about a hospital but i don't mean for really sick kids i mean for kids with broken legs never really gets his way on the project and halfway through the series admits i don't know what story i'm doing anymore this of course resulted in the messy and dull let it be which now more than ever just feels like bad quality clips of mostly pretty ordinary moments between the lads then peter jackson comes in half a century later and realizes that the beatles have actually been telling the story all along meaning get back doesn't have contemporary interviews because we don't need them god love the men but we don't need someone like dave grohl interrupting the flow of the documentary to tell us why the beatles are so important because the beatles are showing us that themselves it truly is a unique experience that makes you feel like you're in the rehearsal room in 1969 and that's exactly what this film should be let's separate get back from its documentary leanings for a moment and look at it through the lens of narrative plot and story in this case the plot is simple the beatles must write and rehearse 14 new songs and perform them at the end of the process with the added challenge of only having two weeks to accomplish this the story of get back is of four musicians outgrowing their identity as a band and figuring out who they now are to each other and to themselves jon's off creating strange art with yoko and preaching world peace george is yearning to be credited as an artist in his own right and bring out an album of his own songs paul is about to become a family man and ringo is well he's about to star in a movie i suppose the point is these boys are now men and are beginning to experience life as individuals and not as a foursome and get back explores this dichotomy through their conversations their actions and of course through their music the story is also split into three parts the first part encompassing the early and most tension-driven rehearsals of their songs in the cold and unwelcoming twickenham studios resulting in george harrison leaving the group by the end of part one part two opens with the uncertainty of the beatles even staying together as a band at all but moves into happier territory once george returns as well as moving into apple studios along with the inclusion of additional member billy preston lifting the spirits of everyone involved part two ends with the idea of them playing on the rooftop as a way to end with a big finish part three are the final rehearsals plus the famous rooftop performance played in full peter jackson should really be commended for crafting a cohesive story out of all of these events because it makes the whole experience a treat for our eyes and ears and creates a satisfying narrative that i think people will find something new in with each consecutive watch one of the most amazing things about the beatles get back is the sheer amount of new information presented to us like i knew we'd get some never before seen footage but watching get back was like revelation after revelation one of the first things i noticed is how apart from a key argument between george and paul all of the beatles actually got on really well with each other for almost the entire time none of them hurl abuse at each other or are even that impolite to each other i realized this only a few minutes in when one of the first things we hear from george harrison is a compliment towards paul on his appearance i think your beard suits you man it was only a small moment but one that made me realize that all preconceptions about these guys can be thrown away we're about to watch history rewritten i didn't mention this in my hopes for the beatles get back video but i did in my beatles biopic video and that is that i've always wanted to see an accurate portrait of the beatles creative process and of all my favorite discoveries from get back witnessing the creative process of the beatles in real time has got to be the greatest gift of all in my opinion the first obvious one is jon and paul working on the song give me some truth which i always thought was a john song but it appears that paul contributes as well remember your hangman no freaked out yeah yellow belly son of gary cooper gonna yeah i mean even paul didn't realize he did this and he's clearly co-written a song the next time i see paul i say to him i had no idea paul that you co-wrote give me some truth and he looks at me and says what give me some truth i mean john's song from a solo album i said yeah yeah and he said no i didn't have anything to do with that so i get my ipad and he looks at it and he shakes his head and he says i have no memory of working on that song and then he sort of had a twinkle in his eye and he says oh that's a really great song so i'm happy to take a little bit of credit for it it is very cool to not only hear but to see these solo 70s songs like give me some truth and all things must pass worked out as beatles tunes first speaking of all things must pass jon's suggesting that lyrical change from a wind can blow those clouds away to our mind which george just welcomes and totally utilizes a little bit of psychedelia you know these little contributions from them all are so lovely to see okay wow this was a huge one pretty much everyone has brought up this one but i'm talking about the point where we're watching paul come up with get back on the spot the birth of a song out of nothing he's just strumming his hoffner absent-mindedly which i've helpfully recreated for you here then some indistinct vocals start to emerge while ringo and george look on half asleep by the looks of things i was watching this on my tv and it dawned on me what was happening and i just shouted this is get back we're watching paul mate get back then george joins in on guitar ringo follows on drums people have asked paul mccartney for years how do you come up with your songs and here we have one born out of the ether in front of our very eyes how michael lindsay hogg kept this out of the original let it be is anyone's guess i really feel like that guy had an axe to grind not only do we get to see the genesis of the song get back but it's the song that we arguably witness the most of in every stage of its creation which i think is pretty appropriate it is the name of the film after all now it's not all sunshine and revisionist history there is a major cause of friction in the first part which culminates in george harrison leaving the group for a few days the first sign we see of this is on day three where they're coming up with the harmonic arrangement for don't let me down and george and paul are bickering about it before jon has to say okay girls give me a ride i get wrong whitley john plays the role of mediator way more than i expected and is virtually never the cause of any of the arguments he's not that embittered character or he's often depicted as in fact when he's not joking around he's more likely to be coming down from whatever stone knight he'd been recovering from but he's never a caustic presence i suppose the tension with jon happens a few months down the line when he unilaterally appoints alan klein as their new manager later in the film we do see john mention that he's just met alan klein for the first time and how amazing he is and it's a it's a fairly sad sign of things to come just like he knows me as much as you do incredible guy but getting back to george who still thinks don't let me down sounds awful paul tries to rally them all and says we're all at odds we're doing that thing we did on the beatles the white album and this is where the famous argument between george and paul from let it be arrives whatever it is that'll appease you i'll do it but we now have a greater context for what is actually going on with the band and we get right to the emotional core of the argument with a heartfelt declaration from paul who's getting close to breaking point and says and i have been for like a couple of years maybe it's just me but paul actually sounds a bit choked up when he's venting about how it's not his desire to be this controlling figure within the band and stop him but i'm not i'm trying to stop us all playing until we can hear how he doesn't want to be that cause of friction he just wants them all to work together but him getting them all to work together is the cause of friction it's also really interesting to see paul lose the room for a bit since about 1970 everyone who's ever been in paul mccartney's presence has acted like it's a life-changing moment for them and of course but here he is in a room full of people who are nothing but fed up with him the next day while michael lindsay hogg is hanging around george harrison mentions that the beatles have been in doldrums for at least a year ever since mr epstein passed away it's never been the same i think it's interesting they still call him mr epstein even after he's died paul then tries to plead his case and says that there's no one really there now to say do it daddy's gone away now and we're on our own at the holiday camp this all ends with george throwing the earliest wrench in the idea of the beatles staying together with the line so we've got george over here marinating on the idea of the beatles breaking up meanwhile we've got john and paul working together eyeball to eyeball on get back and i think this is where we see george really start to crack how it must feel to be sat to the side while these other two are meshing together so beautifully because as paul says in the film musically you know we can play better than we've ever been able to play he says he and john aren't seeing each other as much anymore but they're playing together better than ever and i think that's a really important distinction and it doesn't help when george challenges paul's ideas on his song and paul just keeps shutting him down what's becoming clear is that paul is partly using these rehearsals as time to just be with jon he literally hasn't been able to see him to just be able to hang out with his best friend and these band rehearsals are kind of the only time that these two can just be mates and have a laugh meanwhile george is here trying to contribute and paul's just knocking him back at every turn i'm trying to sing louder to get over the katana john's not really taking his song seriously paul's severely limiting george's guitar don't if you vamp then it takes away from his vamping then paul just walks over to jon and starts working on the lyrics while again george is just in the corner fiddling with his guitar probably thinking about the scores of musicians who would give anything to work with him then it switches to the rehearsal of two of us where we see some really skillful editing where we've got jon and paul meshing together beautifully literally singing a song called two of us to each other i mean who can blame george for feeling left out and this is where we see or i suppose here george quit the beatles [Music] whether they actually had footage of george quitting is unclear but the audio tells you everything you need to know when now and then he's gone and john is pissed so pissed then the three remaining beetles get back together and just start wilding out they're all obviously stressed angry and frustrated and start letting off some serious steam by playing heavily and messily yoko then gets on the mic and it just becomes a cacophony of sound [Music] paul starts swinging from the scaffolding just letting it out however he can then we get some pretty telling information from their longtime producer george martin who says that george harrison really only has himself whereas jon and paul are a team michael lindsey hogg asks george martin but john and paul aren't running together much anymore are they really and george martin says no but nevertheless there's still a team and that and that is the crux of the issue here oh boy i thought the decision to end part one with a demo of george harrison's isn't it a pity was a perfect choice a song that the beatles had been rejecting from george ever since revolver that finally turned up on all things must pass although not written about the beatles and more about society as a whole in fact the song george actually did write on the day that he quit was [Music] wawa but isn't it a pity really suits the fraction mood and broken bond between the band at this point in time i loved all those slow motion shots of everyone i just thought it worked really well and then there's that moment that the three remaining beetles kind of come together in a huddle after george quits i mean that that was an emotional one folks then two days later when the beatles and their wives meet up with george and the words come up [Music] i mean what a fantastic cliffhanger to end the first act on it's another moment where you realize that peter jackson isn't just showing clips cobbled together chronologically he's crafting the story of this turbulent time of the world's most famous band then the beginning of part two is easily the toughest point of the documentary the meeting with george didn't go well and now jon hasn't shown up either this leads to questions from michael lindsey hogg directed at paul asking him if john and paul wrote more together before yoko came along and he says of course but paul says that's also because jon and him were always around each other touring living together and now john wants to be with his new love and that's okay paul says she's great she really is all right they just want to be near each other paul even alludes to the myth of yoko breaking up the beatles with the line but it's gonna be such an incredible comical thing like in 50 years time you know they broke up because yoko sat on an m i'm just going to use this moment here to say that get back is just further evidence that yoko didn't break up the beatles from my view it really doesn't appear that yoko is in any way disruptive and look i'm not an idiot i realize that peter jackson could have edited out more moments of friction between her and the other beatles but from what i saw she's more a silent support for jon who doesn't seem like he'd be able to handle those sessions without her i mean she's just like usually reading the paper or just quietly listening she really just starts to become part of the scenery after a while in one sequence later on she's just doing like calligraphy off to the side my girlfriend said it's almost like they're just in her living room while she goes about her business but without a doubt the most heartbreaking moment of the entire documentary that paul and ringo didn't even realize was being filmed is after they're not able to get onto jon and there's this 22 second long shot of paul on the verge of tears after saying number two he's coming to grips with so many things that this album and tv special probably won't happen that george and now john may be out of the group which means he's not only losing the beatles he's losing his best friends and sadly it's also hauntingly prophetic apparently the audio of this has been circulating around on bootlegs for years but it's an entirely other thing to see paul actually processing this it's just one of those moments that almost doesn't feel real i mean yeah it absolutely broke me and i'd love to know to just share the weight of this scene what did you think of this leave a comment i'd love to hear your thoughts but then we're given a little bit of hope when we hear that jon is in fact coming in what is then equally illuminating is the part where jon and paul go to the cafeteria for a private conversation little do they know that the filmmakers have hidden a microphone in a flower pot now this is truly remarkable ethics aside to hear a full conversation between jon and paul to really be able to listen in and hear how they converse to each other when they think it's just the two of them is a revelation in itself john seems to hit the nail on the head regarding george when he says and yesterday and when he is that far then we've got the ego then there's that revealing admission from paul to john they've always been secondly i mean it's what we've always kind of thought the dynamic to be but to actually just hear them say that to each other wow and then a truly bittersweet moment is when paul says with all reasons that also made me a little bit teary i'm not gonna lie and even though george is gone there's still this great footage of john and paul working together like their writing partners they are as they fine-tune the lyrics to get back it's just one of the many examples in this documentary of the two of them still collaborating despite the common consensus up to now that they stopped writing together after sergeant pepper [Music] you even get the snippet of paul playing a song he'd just come up with that morning which turns out to be the earliest workings of the backseat of my car off paul's 1971 album ram [Music] which really makes sense as it's a song about leaving whatever's holding you back and escaping off with the person that you love which was obviously a theme weighing on paul's mind as it's a similar sentiment as on the long and winding road however after a few days of absence the three beatles have another meeting with george this time a productive one and all agree to unify this time at apple studios and in terms of the documentary this marks the end of the bad blood between them all in fact i'll quote george who said of the previous day's unfilmed rehearsal good vibes man what was then super cool to see is how george really stepped it up from here he basically got the ship back up and running at apple by supplying his own eight-track recorder along with some gear from emi courtesy of george martin after they found the mess of state-of-the-art equipment supplied by magic alex which had been left in the studio for them but never ended up working properly i'm really glad this documentary highlights how much of a [ __ ] artist magic alex was it was just so great to see their spirits just fully pick up and even see them all laughing at that ridiculous article which stated that jon and george came to blows which was immediately debunked by the two of them in the funniest way and i think this is where jon really comes into his own in terms of humor he seems to be less out of it like he was at twickenham studios nothing ever really seems to faze john lennon he really is just the most jovial and lighthearted of them all during this whole period and now for billy preston oh man billy preston i've always heard how great of a presence billy was for them all and how he really improved morale but it's another thing to see exactly how he did it the way paul's face lights up when billy comes in on i've got a feeling he loves it they all do you're in the group electric piano is such a great sound and then there's that line from john you're giving us a left belt and it's that compliment there that symbolizes exactly what billy preston does for the beatles and it's here that we get an improvised number between john paul and billy with yoko wailing on vocals and paul looks like he's having a ball because you've got to remember paul was one of the first of the beatles to really get into the avant-garde scene maybe he didn't go as far with it but he was one of the first and to actually see him digging the sound that they were making only softens yoko's influence even more i love how excited jon was to george when he arrives it was great yoko john and paul and billy were doing their freak out you probably thought great my two collaborators finally coming together place is absolutely i'd like it to be part of a new lp he's so adorable is it all on film yeah what a great bit of film we then get another phase in the evolution of the song get back this time with george interpolating the melody of reach out i'll be there into the song which is a mashup that needs to happen someone go and make that a lovely discovery was the scene where they're considering making billy preston part of the beatles i mean i just like him in our band actually i knew about this fact before get back but to see jon actually push for the idea and then have george agree and say hey while we're all here let's get them all in let's get in bob dylan he'll definitely say yes dylan to join the beatles as well you know are we gonna get them all in it which side note is a really adorable running theme of george harrison crushing hard on bob dylan throughout this entire process he's singing his songs in his down time and he's convinced that dylan would want to join him uh yeah i i don't know if he would george but i think it's very sweet that you weren't part of the group and of course a few years down the track george eventually got his wish and was in a group with bob dylan paul then brings everyone back down to earth by saying that there's enough trouble with fall which gets a pretty big laugh from everyone oh man i also thought the conversation about that trip to india was incredibly illuminating they all seem to have different takes on what the purpose was of them going there paul's pushing his artsyness and talking about the home movie they shot plus all those knowing looks between jon and paul when discussing how they weren't really themselves in the presence of the maharishi i imagine this probably got on george's nerves quite a bit especially when he says the thing that reminds everyone why he was often called the mystical one that is the biggest joke to be yourselves because that was the purpose of going there to try to find who yourself really is and if you were really yourself you wouldn't be any of who we are now [Music] really is mind-blowing just how very wise and spiritual george harrison was even at just 25 years of age for anyone writing a future beatles biopic pay attention to this scene it's one of those moments that shows not just how much depth there was to george harrison but also shows how the real-life conversations of the beatles are more insightful and poignant than any written script could ever be because yeah you remember all these guys they're so young george is 25 paul's 26 john and ringo are like barely 28 years old the fact that all the beatles everything in the beatles happened before any of them turned 30 is just i love discovering how they all seem to enjoy playing older songs from different beatles you've got pulsing strawberry fields forever [Music] and one that really surprised me was jon knowing all the words too i lost my little girl the first song paul ever wrote a little girl yes i had that very last year and not one they ever recorded it was just very sweet to me speaking of sweet george helping out on octopuses garden blessing that he didn't feel the need to have a shared writing credit because it definitely appears that he helped ringo with the chord progression you get a little bit of the sequence in let it be but it's way more fleshed out in get back and it's probably the most wholesome moment in the entire documentary finally justice for george and ringo and then about 31 minutes in there's another great example where john and paul are writing together during don't let me down i mean you could use this screenshot of them at the piano as a symbol of their writing partnership my final discovery and one that left me feeling all kinds of bittersweet was when paul was out of the room and george was opening up to john about how he's got so many songs that he's got his quota for like the next 10 years 10 albums and that i just like to maybe do an album of songs on your own yeah yeah john thinks this is a great idea but that that way it also preserves this the beetle bit of it more which is a pretty obvious hint that george and john intend the beatles to continue that this is a way of maintaining the band now paul didn't hear that conversation he sees the film and i ask him what do you think about that conversation that sort of paints a picture of how the beatles could have carried on the future and you know what falls into me he said i wish i knew that they said they said that at the time man that is just that sent my mind and my heart racing what if they discussed this again with paul what if they had a meeting where they could have been honest about this and agreed to allow each other to do solo work but still come back every now and then to do a beatles album or even a show it's too painful and pointless to deal in what-ifs but yeah if that also had an effect on you let me know in the comments i do love how george considers giving his songs away but ultimately decides no [ __ ] all that just gonna do me for a bit so those are what i think are the big discoveries the revelations of get back now if you wouldn't mind i'd like to fire off my list of the absolute greatest moments from the documentary because there are a ton these are pretty much all the moments that just made me smile and cheer like a big dumb idiot okay working on i've got a feeling for the first time and we get that brilliant moment of george's dry wit is that one called i've got to feel it the clothes oh my god the clothes from george's pink turtleneck to george and ringo's frilly shirts i also like how they seem to coordinate color palettes there's entire days where some of them wear like entirely green hues or orange shoes speaking of coordinating ringo and heather how they do entire takes of their songs in just the silliest of voices there's the one where they're doing two of us with entirely gritted teeth [Music] maybe this is the secret to their creativity in fact most takes that we see them seem to just be them having a laugh [Music] to the point where if you showed up for a few minutes you'd probably think ah these guys have lost it they're not taking it seriously at all but they still managed to write rehearse and record an entire album's worth of songs in less than a month i guess because they're the beatles and that's their power george trolling one of the engineers with the mic that gives electric shocks [Music] mal evan's delight in playing the anvil is just so charming in fact mal is the unsung hero of the whole thing the gentle giant who's always there with a lyric sheet or a cup of tea george's priceless guitar just falling over and not being a big deal seeing linda eastman back in 1969 before they were married and paul showing off in front of her on the piano and giving us a taste of his very first solo single another day it's just another day the moment where linda says i'd love to find them i mean paul must have been listening because that's exactly what he does for her one of my favorite blink and you'll miss it shots is of linda just timidly touching the keys on the organ during a rehearsal a sign of things to come a sign of wings to come sorry a really sweet moment yoko and linda just whispering to each other during rehearsals love that did you ever see the wizarding eyes no no no i didn't know paul what are you doing why haven't you seen the wizard of oz also why are you climbing up that chain man all that this was so silly all they ever eat is toast and marmalade they're like [ __ ] paddington bear like that's literally all they seem to consume the entire time there's just a lot of toast eating i said to stella mccartney a while back i said i can't i was trying to wear a fancy dress party i was trying to fit into one of his suits i have no idea and she just goes it's called malnutrition darla i loved john's salute to elvis on elvis's birthday god bless our gracious king the fact that paul keeps the setlist of the beatles 1966 tour in his hoffner still tells you everything you need to know about paul's love of performing live this is like the 60s artist equivalent of keeping your festival wristband on months after it's over loved paul gathering around the piano and just teaching what he knows he always said if he wasn't a musician he'd be a teacher so i thought that was nice paul telling jon off after john overshares his latest night of watching films and getting stoned i was sort of stoned and i am watching films is there any need to do this in public mr lemon honestly very curious to hear more about that but i made sense why it wasn't in the documentary getting to hear from a pair of real-life apple scruffs why are you here i'm saying that's fine one of them really is only there for paul anyway and paul happens to be out of all the beatles the only one to acknowledge their presence and it's not overstated it's just a small smile and an eyebrow raise but he really recognizes the importance of those girls that dumb freaking guitar bass creation from magic alex that shot of john and ringo arm-in-arm i also loved watching the beatles listening back to their own music that they've just recorded especially when they close their eyes and just go to another place john expressing his love for fleetwood mac on the lead scene there's great paul for canned heat that's not the camden i love that john passionately discussing martin luther king's i have a dream speech i love hearing them talk about the novelty of stereo and like the panning of the drums it's always nice to hear paul perform 20 flight rock the song that got him into the quarry man [Music] i also love paul going back to his half now george is like where's your rickenbacker paul's like i like this one it's lighter i love when the four of them were just reminiscing about their days of playing live i really got into paul making like a story or like a concept album out of the songs it's like uh have to get back we're on our way home but it's the story he really is the biggest beatles fan of them all oh man this is so very revealing the bit where john and paul are putting two of us together and we get this exchange just perfect can't be the only one who's a huge fan of the song fancy me chances hearing bye-bye love sung by lena mccartney well can we have that studio version please that was an absolute treat paul doing parkour on the rooftop i love seeing how good paul is with heather it's a glimpse of the family man he's about to become in fact with the exception of george from what we've seen all the beatles in this series show how good they are with kids how natural i know this is a popular one but heather just staring at yoko while she just whales into the mic priceless but then minutes later we see heather doing the same thing because she doesn't know that that's not really what you're meant to do on a microphone and then i love john noticing it and calling yoko's name hey you get to see george having a few spun silly moments as well you've got that bit where he's like wobbling with the microphone on his neck heather combing paul's hair was really adorable john and paul dancing together so much love and affection such a contrast to the previous week at twickenham also it's just incredible how normal all of them appear as well none of them seem out of touch or obnoxious in fact all the business scenes with all the men in suits and other out there characters just make you see how regular and down to earth all the beatles actually were and also how cool they all were in their own way you really notice this once they've left and all the film crew pick up the instruments and start playing and just look like the biggest bunch of stiffs ringo giving yoko a stick of gum who then breaks it in half and gives it to john olson wholesome wholesome okay now finally i'm going to talk about the rooftop performance i love how quiet it all was and then just get back starts and we're on a whole other level it's like our ears have been tuned to the smaller studio sound and now we're getting the full blast paul's face as he gives that big cheer during jon's first guitar solo [Music] if you can't believe he's back playing live with the boys is ecstatic i loved loved how this performance was edited several clips on screen at once but all from the same time you get to see the rooftop the street and the producers all at once and i thought it was just a really effective way to show the scope of the event this is most effective when contrasting the clip of the cops downstairs complaining with easily the coolest thing in the world happening at that moment just a few flaws up the main cop or the bobbies in the lobby as i call them it looks barely older than 24 which only makes it more hilarious the way they all smile at each other during the gig is just wonderful the joy on jon's face especially during digger pony is just fantastic he'd been doping himself on heroin during this period but nothing's given him a high quite like making music like this and playing it live once again easily one of my favorite moments is this one then he starts taunting them with his salacious dance moves he really couldn't have asked for anything better you know he'd just love to get arrested for playing rock and roll with his best mates his base work at the end of don't let me down [Music] then the incredibly cinematic moment in the last get back where george and john's amps get turned off george just wheels around turns his back on now has to give in turns jon's back on and they can finish the song meanwhile paul's realizing that this may be the last time that they play live in a while maybe ever and is making this count and then just all them listening to it afterwards that great shot of their feet tapping away plus george bobbing his head with his eyes closed you can see on their face that they think they've made some really good stuff yeah okay my final thoughts i think we've all come to believe to some degree that the final year in the beatles lifespan was a deeply unhappy unproductive time for them all and although there were obvious low points and friction here and there i don't believe that any band who had the kind of success that the beatles had was free of these kind of low moments in their careers either it was just so magnified because of the sheer stature of the beatles and i truly think that the original letter b film mythologized this bad blood narrative to the point where we all kind of accepted that that's who they were by the end seems like there's a rift happening between the beatles but the beatles get back takes that narrative and turns it on its head history has in a way been rewritten or more appropriately been corrected not only do we get insights into the beatles creative process we get to see them as human beings we form a greater understanding of who these guys were and what they meant to each other to end with the complete rooftop performance is such a delightful payoff and of course the entire performance looks and sounds incredible peter jackson crafted a truly compelling story out of 56 hours of footage and i think this series will be held up as the pre-eminent beatles film i think it's not only the best beatles film better than a hard day's night or help and definitely better than any biopic but i also think it's my favorite documentary about a rock and roll band of which there are many and just like how in 1964 we welcomed the beatles inside our homes for the first time now 57 years later we're welcoming them inside again but this time as old friends who we can just hang out with and have a laugh and all the while marvel at their charisma their talent and most of all their unlimited musical genius as peter jackson told rolling stone there's a joy in the songs that they sang in decades and decades to come it will never be dulled it will never be suppressed that joy that infectious joy is part of the human psyche now it has never been a better time to be a fan of the beatles hey everyone thanks for watching this video to the end i really appreciate it now i'd love to know what you thought of the beatles get back jump down in the comments and let me know your favorite moments from the documentary were you disappointed were you delighted did something surprise you and if you enjoyed this video please give it a like and if you haven't already hit subscribe i make a lot of beatles content and would love to share it with you and like i said earlier in the video if you'd like to support me on patreon i would really appreciate it it mean i can make these videos more often and it also means you'll get access to bonus content i usually make one or two extra videos a month as well plus other bonus content and you'll get a saying what kind of content i make in future so link in the description if you'd like to support me otherwise thank you so much for watching and as usual i'll see you in the next one good night paul say good night john good night paul good night

Channel: Elliot Roberts

Views: 611,038

Keywords: DisneyPlus

Id: E1enbCjsXu8

Length: 40min 57sec (2457 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 23 2021