Long dismissed, Beatles’ “Let It Be” returns after 54 years
In 2021, director Peter Jackson’s sprawling and vibrant Beatles docuseries, “The Beatles: Get Back ,” streamed on Disney+ to nearly universal acclaim. The three- part epic, which ran nearly eight hours, captured the drama and frenzy as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr recorded, over the pressure-filled month of January 1969, what would become the last album that the Beatles released, “Let It Be.”
As fans were well aware, Jackson’s series was culled from nearly 60 hours of behindthe- scenes footage originally shot by the director Michael Lindsay- Hogg for “Let It Be ,” his little- seen, though often dismissed ,1970 documentary about those recording sessions.
After its initial theatrical run, Lindsay-Hog g’ s film largely disappeared for more t han a half- century with the exception of low- quality VHS versions and bootlegs.
Fans t end to remember it as an intriguing historical document capturing the late- stage creative flights of a seismic musical force, but also as a divorce proceeding of sorts, with stark moments of internal disco rd as the band hurtled toward a nasty split.
By that view, “Get Back,” with its abundant moments of jokey banter and on- set clowning, was seen by some as an overdue corrective to “Let It Be.”
Little surprise but Lindsay-Hogg, 83, has a very different view.
The acclaimed director had a hand in inventing the music video, with his promotional films for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the mid- 1960s, and went onto win pl audits for the 1980s British miniseries “Brideshead Revisited.” He has fought for a half-century for“Let It Be” to get a second look and, in his mind, a fair shake.
On May 8, he will get his wish, when “Let It Be,” meticulously restored by Jackson’s production team, begins streaming on Disney+ in collaboration with Apple Corps, the company that oversees the Beatles creative and business interests. Lindsay- Hogg spoke to The New York Times about the culmination of a long crusade. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q » You have been working for decades to revive “Let It Be.” What finally changed? A» Peter was the catalyst. He and I met in December 2018, before he really started on “Get Back,” and he said, “Tell me the story of ‘ Let It Be’ — you know, what’s happened since you made it, because I’ve seen it pretty recently and I think that movie should come out.” So a year or two went by, and he told me that he had a very good relationship with Paul and Ringo and also with Sean Lennon and Olivia Harrison, George’s widow, as well as with Jonathan Clyde, who produced “Get Back” for Apple. So he started to advocate for “Let It Be” to come out. He and Clyde got a budget for the restoration work, and slowly it moved through Apple.
Q » Is “Let It Be” just a short version of “Get Back”?
A » Peter very much didn’t want “Get Back” to look like he just pulled it from “Let It Be,” so if he wanted to show a scene that was in my film, he would show it from different angles andre construct it differently. There are scenes in“Let It Be” that aren’ t in“Get Back .” They’ re very different, although obviously they have many great similarities.
Q» A lot of people remember “Let It Be” as a bad- vibes movie, probably in part because of that famous scene in which George and Paul bicker about George’s guitar part on “Two of Us.” Was that exchange another sign of the beginning of the end? A » No one had ever seen the Beatles have a fight, but that wasn’t really a fight. Up to that point, no one had filmed, except in bits and pieces, the Beatles rehearsing. So that was new territory. That exchange between Paul and George, they never commented on, because it was the same kind of conversation that any artistic collaborators would have. As a director in the theater and in movies, I know that kind of conversation happens five times a week.
Q » When “Get Back” came out, a lot of fans saw it as happy corrective to “Let It Be.” Is that accurate?
A » I would say most people who saw Peter’s picture as a corrective to mine haven’t seen mine, because no one was able to see it for 50 years. So unless they were children when they saw it in theaters, the only way most people would have seen it was on VHS or bootlegs, which changed the original aspect ratio and had dark and gloomy pictures and bad sound. That is part of the reason the movie was put in the closet for a long time.
Q» After 54 years, do you think fans will have a different perception of the film? A» If you see it with no preconceptions, the picture works very well, and it’ s clear that you’re looking at four men who have known each other since they were teenagers — well, three of them anyway—who love each other as brothers might. But they weren’t any more the Fab Four, the mop tops. A couple of them are pushing 30. They had stopped touring, which is a very big change for a rock ‘ n’ roll group. What you see in the movie is that the affection is eternal between the four of them. But they were living very separate lives now.
Q » During filming, did you get the sense that they were on the verge of breaking up? A » No, not at all. We started shooting with four Beatles. We ended it with four Beatles. It was not like the San Andreas Fault. I thought they might go off and do their own thing, follow their heart and release separate albums, but then get together, because the Beatles were a very powerful artistic force, and also social force. I didn’t think the Beatles were going to break up till they broke up.
Q » Even critics of “Let It Be” would have a hard time arguing that their final live set on the roof of Apple Corps wasn’t a joyous moment.
A » How lucky can you get that the last line in the movie is from John, up on the roof. The set has been broken up by the police — which is good, because that’s as many songs as they had rehearsed anyway — then John says, “And I hope we passed the audition.” Because if anyone did pass the audition, in that entire decade, it was the Beatles.