Are you now or have you ever
been a Beatles fan?Would you like to be
a fly on the wall, witnessing the most important and influential rock band in
history create their art?Or do you simply
enjoy watching musical brilliance at work?If you say yes to any of the above, you’ll want to watch Get Back.
This three-part, seven and a half-hour documentary
mini-series chronicles three weeks in the musical life of the Beatles as they write,
rehearse, discuss, noodle around, and perform the songs for their final album, Let
It Be.
The original footage was filmed
with multiple cameras in January, 1969, by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for
the 1970 film Let It Be.More
recently, Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson restored the original
uncut footage and shaped it into Get Back, which he calls “a documentary
about a documentary.â€This description
is a bit misleading, because while the 1969 film crew is a presence in the new
series, mostly Get Back is not about making a film; it’s an intimate glimpse
at the Beatles’ creative process.
I watched every second of Get
Back and was riveted the entire time.I felt privileged to witness this amazing, extended close-up of such a
significant moment in pop culture history.
Three things in particular stood
out to me:
First, at this time in the
life of the Beatles, Paul is unmistakably the driving force.John, certainly Paul’s creative and
intellectual equal, and in the past his co-leader, seems to be semi-checked
out.With Yoko at his side—she literally
spends almost every minute sitting next to John, often physically touching in
some way—John seems only half-present for much of the group’s discussions and
casual jamming.However, he does seem to
fully engage when they are actually recording or performing.
Secondly, I was struck by the
utter lack of toxic masculinity in the room.These four immensely talented, powerful, wealthy guys just want to play
music together.The way their talents
and personalities mesh, how they respect each other and give each other space,
and most of all how their creativity flows is awesome to observe.At one point Paul and George bump up against
each other about how to play something, but the conflict is muted and civil and
quickly resolved as George acquiesces to Paul’s vision.George seems to accept his place in the group
dynamic—until at one point he doesn’t.Which
leads to by far the most dramatic and tension-filled portion of the film.
And finally, Yoko.I found her constant presence very peculiar.She’s at John’s side, smack in the middle of
the Beatles’ tight circle of creativity, for nearly the entire film.She doesn’t participate, she doesn’t
interfere, she’s just there. Once in a
while she does her own thing—she reads a fan magazine, paints, sews—but mostly
she does nothing.I found myself annoyed
by her presence.I kept wondering: Why
is she there?Doesn’t she have her own
life to attend to?
If you’re curious about the
myth that “Yoko broke up the Beatles,†this documentary will fascinate on that
level alone.The simple answer is
No.The complicated answer is that
throughout the film it’s apparent that the Beatles are drifting apart, and John
and Yoko’s relationship is just one of many factors in that drift.Looking back on the blame-Yoko
phenomenon, it’s easy to see how racism and sexism and the fact that she doesn’t
fit into the traditional role or image of a “musician’s wife†all played a part
in her demonization.
Not to be lost amidst all
the personality dynamics is the pleasure of watching the Beatles create.In one astonishing sequence, Paul starts by
strumming a few chords on his guitar as Ringo and George look on.A few seconds in, the chords change a bit and
take on a shape that sounds a bit familiar.Soon Paul begins to add in some vaguely mumbled, improvised words.Within a span of two minutes—two minutes!!—he
has come up with the music and lyrics to the Beatles’ hit tune “Get Back.â€
***
For a deeper look at John
and Yoko’s relationship, and to learn more about who they were as individual
human beings, check out the documentary, John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky.Produced in 2018, this film centers around
the making of John’s Imagine album, which he recorded at his home studio
in 1971.
Like Get Back, Above
Us Only Sky incorporates old session footage of John and his band
rehearsing and recording.In this case
the session material was shot for a film that John released alongside the Imagine
album.But, unlike Get Back, the studio
footage in Above Us Only Sky is just one element among many.We also observe John and Yoko’s domestic life
together; we see them reading the newspaper and smoking in bed; we see them goofing
off around their rambling Tittenhurst Park estate in Ascot, England; we see
footage of John’s young son, Julian, and his friends playing on the estate
grounds.
One of the most
memorable—and chillingly prescient—scenes is when an emotionally disturbed
Vietnam vet shows up at John’s estate.The
police want to arrest him, but John nixes that idea.Standing in the doorway, he talks to the vet:
“Don’t confuse the songs with your own mind,†John counsels the man.“I mean they might have relevance to your
mind, but a lot of things do…I’m just a guy who writes songs.We can only say ‘hello’ and what else is
there?â€Then he feeds the guy lunch.
Taken together, Get Back
and Above Us Only Sky compliment each other and fill in each other’s blanks
in telling the story of John, Yoko, the Beatles, and a seminal slice of our
cultural history.
(Get Back is
currently streaming on Disney+.Above
Us Only Sky is currently available on Netflix.)
(Eve Goldberg is a writer and filmmaker.
Her articles have appeared in Hippocampus, The Gay & Lesbian Review,
The Reading Room and AmericanPopularCulture.com. Her film and television
credits include Emmy-nominated Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist, and Cover Up:
Behind the Iran-Contra Affair. Her first book, Hollywood Hang Ten, is a
mystery novel set in 1963 Los Angeles. See a sampling of her short films on her
web site at
https://eve-goldberg.com/ )