'I just can't believe it exists': Peter Jackson takes us into the Beatles vault locked up for 52 yea [View all]

[Omaha Steve]

Last edited Sun Nov 21, 2021, 06:34 PM - Edit history (1)

‘The whole thing boggles my mind’ … Jackson on The Beatles: Get Back. Photograph: Don McCullin/Press Images/Eyevine

Andy Welch
Sat 20 Nov 2021 07.00 EST

Ahead of his epic series Get Back, the director reveals the secrets of 60 hours of intimate, unseen footage of the Fab Four – and why it turns everything we know about their final days upside down

When the world closed down in March 2020, most of us had to make do with pretending to enjoy video calls with friends or baking bread. Peter Jackson, meanwhile, was busy sifting through a mountain of unseen footage – 60 hours in total – of the Beatles, shot by the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg in 1969.

His four-year project is now finished – “we finally completed it on Friday,” says a relieved-looking Jackson from his home in New Zealand – and the resulting series, The Beatles: Get Back, will be released on Disney+ from 25 November. Originally envisaged as a feature film, Covid uncertainty saw plans revised. It is now three two-hour episodes, using the mass of outtakes from Lindsay-Hogg’s work on what would become Let It Be, the band’s fourth feature film.

It is striking just how much joy is contained within the vivid and eerily detailed footage. Contrary to almost all accounts over the past 52 years, John, Paul, George and Ringo are seemingly happy to be in the studio: laughing, joking, singing in the style of ventriloquists, talking about last night’s TV (Peter Cook and Zsa Zsa Gabor having a spat) and, of course, writing music. Taken at face value, it’s a unique insight into a band at work, restored to a modern, HD sheen. But, more than that, it’s a study of four of the most idolised and scrutinised individuals in the world in their prime. This is not just a music documentary, it’s a history book come to life.

FULL story: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/nov/20/i-just-cant-believe-it-exists-peter-jackson-takes-us-into-the-beatles-vault-locked-up-for-52-years