The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Long, winding, and magical road back to where we all belong
PETER Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong, worked a strange and wonderful kind of magic when he made the 2018 documentary They Shall Not Grow Old.
In painstakingly restoring and colourising Imperial War Museum footage from the First World War, Jackson and his team brought the conflict, and the men who fought and died in it, flickering into life again.
He has now repeated the feat with footage, much of it unseen, from The Beatles’ Get Back Sessions for the studio album
Let it Be, recorded in London in January 1969.
The stunning result is The Beatles: Get Back (Disney +, from Thursday), a docuseries of three, two-hour films capturing the band as separation loomed.
Jackson had feared the additional footage was going to feature more of the fraught scenes captured in Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original documentary, known to fans as “the break-up film about the break-up album”. It turned out to be anything but.
“I don’t think there is a single sort of three-week period in
The Beatles’ history that is more prolific and creative than this,” says Jackson. “So rather than regarding this as being a sort of miserable breaking-up of The Beatles that has resulted in crappy recordings, it is actually one of the most frenetic songwriting, rehearsal, recording periods that I’m sure they ever had.”
Paul McCartney was amazed and delighted with the films Jackson put together. “It was a great period. We were a seriously good band, and for it to be documented in this way is very intimate. That’s the great thing about it. You get the music, you get the playing, you get the chat, but mainly you are just eavesdropping in a very intimate way on these guys.”
To mark the release of the docuseries, the BBC have put together a Macca/Beatles tribute night, beginning with Paul McCartney at the BBC (BBC2, Saturday, 7.55pm), then Paul McCartney at the Cavern Club (BBC2, Saturday, 9.25pm), and ending with Idris Elba
Meets Paul McCartney (BBC2, Saturday, 10.55pm).
How many walls have at some time been home to a reproduction of an Henri
Matisse cut-out, either one of the Blue Nudes or The Snail?
Perhaps it was the ubiquity of the posters that made 2014’s Henri Matisse: the Cut-Outs, the most successful exhibition in the history of the Tate Modern.
The story of the exhibition is told in the documentary Matisse: From Tate Modern to MOMA (Sky Arts, free to air, Tuesday, 9pm).
Written and directed by Phil Grabsky with Simon Russell Beale providing the voice for Matisse, the hour long film is both a primer on the artist and his work, and a glimpse into what it takes to stage the kind of event people will still be discussing years later.
Among the talking heads are Nicholas Serota, the Tate’s director till 2017, Sophie Matisse, the artist’s great granddaughter, and Francoise Gilot, artist and partner of Picasso (the two men
lived near each and were friends and rivals). A fascinating film bursting with colour.
Just as BBC management think they are getting it right on impartiality when both sides of an argument cry foul, so the makers of I’m a Celebrity …
Get Me Out of Here! (STV, from Sunday, 9pm) probably have their own way of testing the success of a line-up.
Ideally, the country should be split down the middle between young and old, each side wondering who on Earth half these people are. Do you know your Arlene Phillips (choreographer) from your Frankie Bridge (The Saturdays), your Louise Minchin (ex-BBC Breakfast presenter) from your Danny Miller (Emmerdale)? Come the end of this annual survival game show you will.
I’m a Celebrity has become as much a part of the run-up to Christmas as Bonfire Night and criticising the new John Lewis ad. In pre-Covid days, it was a chance to drink in the Australian sunshine and forget about the winter gloom here. This year, as last, presenters Ant and Dec and the celebs will be freezing their inhibitions off at Gwrych Castle in Wales.
The show, now 19 years old can you believe, tends to stand or fall on two factors: the chemistry of the contestants, and whether Ant and Dec are on form.
I cannot wait to hear Arlene Phillips explaining Hot Gossip to the twentysomethings. As for the casting of Richard Madeley, that was a stroke of genius that had to happen.
TV’s real life Alan Partridge believes the key to surviving the trials and boredom is not taking yourself too seriously. Place your bets now on how long it is till he blows his top about something or other, or suggests a game of monkey tennis.
I’m a Celebrity has become as much a part of the run-up to Christmas as criticising the new John Lewis ad