“It was hell, shooting the movie Let it be. Even the biggest Beatles fan wouldn’t have endured those six weeks of misery. It was the most miserable session on Earth. John Lennon didn’t mince his words in the fall of 1970. Pestilential aftertaste in his mouth. He vomited everything, after his “primal therapy” at Dr Janov. The album Plastic Ono Band, released in December, translated the anger and resentment into memorable and raw songs: ” I don’t believe in Zimmerman [Dylan], I don’t believe in Beatles He proclaimed in God.
The story of “the winter of discontent” (to use the words of George Harrison) was thus written: director Michael Lindsay-Hogg managed to “survive” 80 minutes of this “hell” for his documentary truth Let It Be. Which had the additional misfortune of taking the poster the month following the terrible news that fell on the world in April 1970: yes, Paul McCartney had fanned the fuse, it was the end of the Beatles.
Despite the good times in the film, a medley very joyful rock’n’roll and especially the formidable “impromptu” performance on the roof of the Apple building, we only remembered the sequence of the latent quarrel between Paul and George, the images of Yoko Ono “monopolizing” John, the sad looks of Ringo Starr and a general impression of a rotten atmosphere. For everyone, including the protagonists during decades of interviews, it was the dark chapter of the Beatles’ magical adventure.
A fresh look from downunder
And now, half a century later, a new montage of those hours of infamy is offered by Australian director Peter Jackson, in the form of a six-hour (and more) documentary miniseries on the 25th, 26th and 27th. November, on the Disney + platform. Hours much happier than we thought, we write in the press releases from Apple and Disney. Not to mention Paul who has said everywhere in interviews that he “changed his perception” after seeing Jackson’s work: it was finally full of joy that month. Instant outcry from exegetes, journalists and fans, waving their bootlegs in evidence. Historical revisionism!
Nothing is so white or black. Peter Jackson, who knows a thing or two about myths and storytelling, mastermind of the film adaptation of the trilogy of Lord of the Rings, repeated last Tuesday at a zoom press conference to media around the world (including The duty) that the approximately 60 hours of footage and 140 hours of audio at his disposal certainly did not reflect this vision ” doom and gloom », Quoting Michael Lindsay-Hogg who has never stopped complaining. “He always said, ‘I was there every day and laughed from morning till night.’ He was saying the truth: it can be understood! “
The book of the film, before the film
And it reads. A very beautiful work entitled The Beatles: Get Back, by The Beatles, published ahead of the documentary series, testifies to this: not only do the smiles prevail over the dull faces in the photos of Ethan Russell and Linda McCartney, but the verbatim of the conversations between the Beatles, Lindsay-Hogg , the sound engineer Glyn Johns and the various assistants present reveal that the moments of tension are rather brief and the moments of humor quirky like the Beatles, more than numerous.
Jackson’s film, it was understood at the press conference, will be very similar to the book: the approach is similarly chronological, follows just as naturally “the dramatic arc day after day”, makes the story more than ever understandable thanks to “an artificial intelligence process that makes it possible to distinguish conversations from guitars and other ambient noises”. Better than none bootleg never allowed it, Jackson added, quite proud of it.
The few minutes – trailer, various extracts – which, in recent months, prepare the ground and make the fans salivate, are already of an unimaginable quality, for who had only seen Let it be in 1970 (or in VHS!), from 16 mm footage inflated to 35 mm coarse grain. “I wanted a perfect copy,” says Jackson. So that we feel as if we are there, in a corner, watching them create. Perfect image, perfect sound. It’s been a big part of my job. Everything already existed, the images of Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the mono tracks of the Nagra, the eight-track recordings in the studio in the basement of Apple… I had no filming to do, I just had to improve the technical quality and finding the best way to tell the story. “
Almost eight hours with them
Very quickly, the initial order for a two-and-a-half-hour documentary for the cinema seemed insufficient. “I knew I wanted the whole Beatles performance on the Apple roof, the 45 minutes. I had an hour and 45 minutes left for the other twenty days. A little over three minutes a day! Paul, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia Harrison “immediately agreed to the six hour series.”
He knew what he wanted to see. “I wanted to stretch to ten minutes the famous supposedly incriminating sequence where Paul and George discuss, to give the context. Paul was surprised at first, but he understood my intention. In a group, it discusses, it is normal. There are tensions, it’s normal. But during all these hours, never a Beatle raises the tone towards another Beatle. Never. They talk to each other frankly, that’s all. George the pragmatic is the first to say that the idea of transporting the audience of a possible show by ocean liner to Africa is “completely insane”. But it is an observation, not an anger. “
The promised six hours have become eight, Jackson also blurted out from his side of the Zoom screen. “There is a long sequence where we see John and Paul helping George with the words of Something, I pretty much put everything. Who doesn’t want to see this? »These are indeed the moments that collectors of bootlegs already cherished: the presentation by one or the other of a new song, the chords that one learns, the first attempt at arrangement, the modifications along the way. Just to show the progression of The Beatles: Get Back, we already know that there is enough to justify half an hour: we will see what Jackson has kept.
A story in three acts
Like the book, the documentary doesn’t just fall into three parts, but three acts: Twickenham Film Studios (rehearsals for what was originally intended to be a show of new songs for television), Apple Studios ( the recordings of a more modest project: making an album) and The Rooftop. The “drama” occurs at the end of the first act, when George, tired of endless discussions, decides to leave the group. His comments in the verbatim prepare for his release: “Nothing has been the same since Mr. Epstein died …”; “I think we could get a divorce…” Gag de Lennon: “But who would have custody of the children? It’s a safe bet that Jackson will not miss a moment like this.
In fact, hearing him at a press conference will have succeeded in convincing those who could still fear what Jackson himself calls the “so-called whitewashing “. This linen washed in the family, we understand, was not very dirty. “When they work together, what stands out is their involvement, their focus, their closeness. In the documentary, we can hear 12 of the 17 songs that will be on Abbey Road and the drafts of a dozen songs which will be found on the solo albums. It could have been Beatles songs. Yes, they are discussing an ending that is approaching. But when they play, when they sing, it’s the Beatles again and again. “