Trailer for Peter Jackson’s Beatle Documentary ‘Get Back’ Shows Happier Side of the Band’s Final Months
The trailer for Peter Jackson’s three-part docuseries Get Back reveals a more carefree Fab Four, though not without some strife.
The Lord of the Rings director compiled the three-part series, which will air on Disney Plus on three successive days (November 25th, 26th, and 27th), from 57 hours of never before seen footage shot by the documentarian Michael Lindsay-Hogg during the sessions for their aborted album Get Back. Jackson’s project was originally supposed to be a feature film but was transitioned to the streamer like so many other film products over the last year and a half.
Lindsay-Hogg used some of the footage for the 1969 film Let It Be, which focused mostly on the rooftop concert that the band performed for a private audience in 1969 at their Apple Studios’ London headquarters, but with a more somber look at a band on their way to an inevitable breakup. Get Back looks to present another side of the group, a much happier, more cheerful band like the one seen in Hard Day’s Night from the group’s earlier years.
Jackson’s film takes that unused footage to create a look behind the scenes, using material of John, Paul, George, and Ringo just being themselves and interacting while they’re assembling the album.
The restored footage looks immaculate, and shows the less flashy moments of the band’s recording process, like a 26-year-old George Harrison searching for the words to complete a line in “Something.” Paul McCartney jokes that the history of The Beatles may show that they broke up because Yoko Ono sat on an amp, and John Lennon is seen doing the “primal scream” howl to “Don’t Let Me Down.”
But it’s not all goofing around: the new trailer lets in some of the rancor from the recording sessions, incorporating the original idea for the film and album in a way that smacks of a reality television pitch. One font in the trailer reads “The Beatles have less than three weeks to write and record a new album.” This seems to make the group increasingly anxious, impatient and frustrated as deadlines pass, but they ultimately come (pardon the pun) together, though the series’ subtext being that they became closer for a few more months before they split up forever.
The series shows how the Get Back sessions fell apart, partially because they were trying to record the album in a different way than their previous triumphs. The album was ultimately scrapped, until Lennon (against McCartney’s wishes) brought in Phil Spector to overhaul the album and add different backing elements. That reimagined album was released in 1970 as Let It Be, which is technically The Beatles’ last album.