Movie Review: The Beatles: Get Back

Although director Peter Jackson’s new film, The Beatles: Get Back, includes footage originally used in Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be (1969), it proves to be a unique and surprisingly refreshing, perspective on what ultimately proved to be the beginning of the end for John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr as a collective unit. The film, although a bit lengthy (Jackson has transformed it into a seven-hour, thirty-eight minute opus), is meticulous in its coverage of its subject and succeeds in offering fans of the band (and those with only a quizzical interest) something unique and entertaining.

The film documents The Beatles in early 1969 as they rehearse new material for an album that they plan to record before a live audience as their next album. This is especially significant given that it has been more than two years since the band decided to quit performing live. In an attempt to “get back” to their roots as a live band and rediscover their passion for music, they ultimately work out fourteen new songs and perform them live atop London’s Savile Row for a very fortunate London audience.

Director Jackson has utilized much of the footage from the 1970 feature film Let It Be in his film, so some material may feel familiar. But it is pulled together with audio and the occasional transcript to create an entirely new vision of the film in a way that is sure to delight fans of the group and the previous film. Editor Jabez Olssen does a miraculous job of combining these disparate elements to make it seem as though everything naturally belongs together. Similarly, the new audio mix of the soundtrack by Giles Martin and Sam Okell also breathes new life into a film that will astound many who have seen the original version. Overall, it is a triumph of editing and sound mixing.

“The Beatles: Get Back.” Photograph: Linda McCartney/2020 Apple Corps Ltd/PA.

Another remarkable feat pulled off by Jackson and company is the preamble to the film that manages to summarize The Beatles history in a relatively brief introduction that takes less than fifteen minutes and transports the audience through the early days of the group right up until the idea is formed for the “Get Back” project and its more than ambitious goals.

It is also mesmerizing how Jackson’s take on the proceedings seem to play out like a documentary within a documentary instead of a simply recut of existing footage. This perspective, along with the painstaking restoration of the original footage of the film, that gives The Beatles: Get Back a uniquely fresh feeling that allows it to transcend the distance in time since it was originally shot.

While The Beatles: Get Back may feel like an overabundance of a good thing, it actually proves to be a carefully structured three-act drama that rewards the viewer with both insight and revelations about the group throughout its first two acts before delivering the tremendously gratifying payoff of the entirety of the band’s rooftop concert in its final act.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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