TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Peter Jackson's 'Get Back' finds joy in final days of the Beatles

The three-part series finds John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in January 1969, preparing for their first concert in more than two years.

Laurent Banguet (AFP)
Los Angeles, United States
Tue, November 23, 2021

Share This Article

Change Size

Peter Jackson's 'Get Back' finds joy in final days of the Beatles The marquee outside of the Exclusive 100-Minute Sneak Peek of Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back at El Capitan Theatre on November 18, 2021 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images for Disney/AFP/Charley Gallay)

"The Beatles: Get Back," the eagerly awaited new Disney+ documentary from Peter Jackson, aims to dispel persistent myths about the Fab Four's breakup, offering a more positive take on their final months as a band.

The three-part series finds John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in January 1969, preparing for their first concert in more than two years.

Using hours of unseen archive footage, it charts how the Beatles had set out to write and record 14 new songs for the occasion, giving themselves a deadline of just three weeks.

The time period is familiar territory for viewers of "Let It Be," the 1970 documentary from British director Michael Lindsay-Hogg that famously emphasized tensions and acrimony within the band, which split that same year.

But Jackson -- best known for his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and an avowed Beatles obsessive -- does not dwell on arguments and creative disagreements among the Liverpool quartet. 

"Get Back" attempts to reshape the popular image of their later years as a time of resentment and fracture, instead showing the bandmates joking around and spontaneously creating classics that are still played regularly today.

"The best bit of us always has been, and always will be, when we're backs against the wall," says a young McCartney in the film, which hits Disney+ from Thursday.

Jackson's series contains the Beatles' final public appearance together, a 40-minute concert on the roof of their company building on London's Savile Row -- shown here for the first time ever in its entirety.

That company -- Apple Corps -- granted Jackson some 60 hours of archival video that had remained under lock and key for decades.

"I think there's always been this misconception that my father was the cause of the Beatles breaking up, and he wasn't," McCartney's daughter Stella told AFP at a Los Angeles event for the series.

"You can see it very clearly through this amazing insight of unseen footage."

Her father remained "heartbroken" over the Beatles' breakup for "most of my life," as is clear from the series, she added.

"You just see him desperately wanting to keep this alive and wanting to make this work and his brotherhood to stay intact."

 

'The coolest'

Stella McCartney, a renowned fashion designer, has created a limited collection inspired by the band's aesthetic during the documentary's period.

She told AFP she watched the documentary not just as the daughter of a Beatle, but as a fan.

"You watch it and you're like, 'This is the best band in the world, this is the greatest music, they are the coolest people,'" she said.

"There are very few moments in the history of the Earth that you can compare," Stella McCartney added.

Part of the band's influence stems from their fashion, the designer said.

"When I look at the Beatles, I'm always really surprised by the amount of fashion that they crammed into a very short period of time and hugely iconic fashion moments.

"If you look at Sergeant Pepper, you know exactly what they were wearing."

But while a proponent of her father's music, Stella McCartney admitted that she cannot work on her clothing while listening to the Beatles or other bands.

"I just prefer silence when I work. It is weird, I'm very aware of that. And I think it's very much from being surrounded by music my entire life," she said.

"My ear is so trained... And I can't focus."

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.