With the release of his highly-anticipated film, The Beatles: Get Back, pushed back to late next year, director Peter Jackson is offering Beatles fans a glimpse at what he found in more than 50 hours of archival footage captured for Michael Lindsay-Hogg's original Let It Be film, which was shot in January of 1969.
Lindsay-Hogg's film documented The Beatles' Let It Be sessions and largely dwelled on the tensions within the band at the time as the members grew apart, both personally and creatively.
But with more than 50 hours of footage left unseen by the public, Jackson's film aspires to offer a more balanced view of that period in Beatles history. The Oscar-winning director quickly found that the sessions weren't nearly as contentious as the world had been led to believe.
"We thought it was a good time to give you a little sneaky preview of what we've been working on and the sort of vibe and the energy that the film's going to have," Jackson explained in an introduction ahead of the montage. "...It just gives you a sense of the spirit of the film that we're making. So let's have a look at that and hopefully it'll put a smile on your face in these rather bleak times that we're in at the moment."
Jackson's sneak peak begins with the four Beatles mocking a newspaper report about George Harrison allegedly assaulting a photographer in France in May of 1968. The next clip shows John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the midst of another bit, attempting to sing "Two Of Us" through clenched teeth.
McCartney and Ringo Starr have both seen early cuts of The Beatles: Get Back and praised Jackson for trying to show the band as they remember it: a group of friends who made music together.
"...It's so lovely for me because I had kind of bought into the idea that, oh, me and John were rivals and didn't like each other and stuff," McCartney told Howard Stern this past April. "But you see the film and it's like, thank god it's not true. The guys, we're obviously having fun together. You can see we respect each other and we're making music together. It's a joy to see it unfold."
Jackson is about halfway through editing the film, which was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An official release date will likely be announced later this winter.
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