In 2021, The Beatles: Get Back, the immense and vibrant documentary series from director Peter Jackson, debuted on Disney+ to universal acclaim. With three parts and almost eight hours long, the epic captured all the furor and drama of when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr recorded, throughout the turbulent month of January 1969, what would become the last album released by the Beatles, Let It Be.
As fans already knew, Jackson’s series came from nearly 60 hours of behind-the-scenes footage taken by the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for Let It Behis 1970 documentary about the recording sessions – a little-seen and often overlooked documentary.
After its first theatrical run, Lindsay-Hogg’s film disappeared for more than half a century, except for low-quality or bootleg VHS versions. Fans tend to remember it as an intriguing historical document that captures the creative flights of the final phase as a seismic force, but also as a kind of divorce process, with moments of serious internal discord as the band approached a separation not amicable.
Scene from ‘Get Back’, a documentary about the Beatles that uses original footage from ‘Let It Be’, from 1970, which is now restored for streaming. Photograph: Linda McCartney / Apple Corps Ltd /Disclosure
From this point of view, Get Backwith its many moments of on-set pranks and antics, was seen by some as a belated correction to Let It Be.
Not surprisingly, Lindsay-Hogg, 83, has a very different view. The acclaimed director was one of those responsible for the invention of the music video – with his promotional films for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the mid-1960s – and won praise for the British miniseries Brideshead Memories (1981). He spent half a century fighting for Let It Be given a second chance and, in his opinion, fair treatment.
This May 8th, he will have his wish granted: Let It Be, meticulously restored by Jackson’s production team, will air 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. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
You’ve been working for decades to resurrect ‘Let It Be’. What finally changed?
Peter was the catalyst. He and I met in December 2018, before he started working in earnest on Get Backand he said, “Tell me the story of Let It Be – you know, everything that happened since filming, because I watched the film the other day and I think it should be re-released.” Then a couple of years passed 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 Jonathan Clyde, who produced Get Back for Apple. So he started advocating the relaunch of Let It Be. He and Clyde got a quote for the restoration and, little by little, Apple did the work.
Is ‘Let It Be’ just a shorter version of ‘Get Back’?
Peter didn’t want it to seem like Get Back had been taken from Let It Beso when he wanted to show a scene that was in my film, he would show it from different angles and construct things in a different way. Let It Be there are scenes that are not in Get Back. The films are very different, although they have many similarities, of course.
Many people remember ‘Let It Be’ as a film that has a heavy atmosphere, probably because of that famous scene where George and Paul argue over George’s guitar playing in ‘Two of Us’. Was this exchange yet another sign of the beginning of the end?
No one had ever seen the Beatles fight, but it wasn’t a real fight. Until then, no one had ever filmed the Beatles’ rehearsals, except for an excerpt or another. So it was new territory. That exchange between Paul and George, they never even commented on, because any artist collaborating with another has conversations like that. As a theater and film director, I know these kinds of conversations happen every day.
When ‘Get Back’ was released, many fans saw it as a welcome correction to ‘Let It Be’. Is it a correct opinion?
I would say that the people who saw Peter’s film as a corrective to my film didn’t see my film, because no one had been able to see it for 50 years. So unless you were kids when you saw it in theaters, the only way to see it would be on VHS or bootleg versions, which changed the original aspect ratio and had dark images and bad sound. That was also why the film was kept in a drawer for so long.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg, director of ‘Let It Be’, coming to Disney+. Photograph: Vincent Tullo/The New York Times
Did the digital restoration change the image and sound of ‘Let It Be’ a lot?
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When Peter showed me some restored images from the film, one of them was of the boys from the back, and their hair looked very disheveled in the original. Then he said, “Now I’ll show you what we’re working on.” It was the same image, but you could see every strand of hair. It’s a 21st century version of a 20th century movie. It’s certainly livelier and brighter than what ended up on video. Now it looks like it was something made to look like it was from 1969 or 1970, although at my request Peter gave it a more cinematic look rather than Get Backwhich looks a little more modern and digital.
The four Beatles didn’t go to the premiere of ‘Let It Be’ in 1970. Was it in protest?
As we now know, the Beatles were already in the process of breaking up when the film was ready for release. Maybe they had a grudge against each other, they weren’t getting along. They announced their separation in April 1970, and Let It Be was released in May. Let It Be it was collateral damage. People didn’t see it for what it was, they just wanted to see what the film wasn’t.
As recently as 2021, Ringo said the film had ‘no joy’. Were the band members unhappy with the film at the time?
Well, after we watched the draft in July, the day before Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon, John and Yoko [Ono], Paul and Linda McCartney, Peter Brown from Apple, my girlfriend and I went out to dinner at Provans in London. The film, I believe, was seen as an unfinished but promising work. Nobody criticized or joked. We sat and had fun like good friends. We talked about our childhoods, had a few bottles of wine. When we showed the final cut, at the end of November, we went out to dinner again, at a place that had a dance floor. We all had a drink and talked a lot, and Paul said he thought the film was good. Ringo was dancing. He dances very well.
Official poster for ‘Let It Be’, the 1970 film about the Beatles that arrives on Disney+. Photograph: Disney+/Disclosure
After 54 years, do you think fans will have a different perception of the film?
If you look at it without prejudice, the film works very well, and it’s clear that you’re seeing four men who have known each other since they were teenagers – well, three of them, at least – and who love each other like brothers. But they were no longer the Fab Four. Some of them were approaching thirty. They had stopped touring, which is a big change for a rock group. What you see in the film is an eternal affection between the four. But they were living very different lives at that point.
During filming, did you get the feeling they were about to finish?
No way. We started filming with four Beatles. And we ended up with four Beatles. It wasn’t something about to crack. I thought they would go out and do their thing, follow their hearts and release their album, but then they would work together again, because the Beatles were a very powerful artistic force – and a social force as well. I didn’t think the Beatles would break up until they did.
Even critics of ‘Let It Be’ would be hard-pressed to say that the last live show, on the roof of Apple Corps, wasn’t a joyous moment.
How lucky that the last line of the film is from John, up on the roof. The set was broken up by the police – which was good, because they hadn’t rehearsed other songs – and then John says: “I hope we passed the test”. Because if anyone passed the test, in that entire decade, it was the Beatles. / TRANSLATION BY RENATO PRELORENTZOU
