The Beatles: Get Back

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Began it last night on Disney+. There’s about 8 hours in total. It’s a lot to watch, but good so far.

Yoko Ono appeared to have no life. Unnerving how she sat like a Sphinx when they were rehearsing.


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*get the VPN humming*



That means that I'm not going to pay Disney any money but I am eagerly going to procure this as soon as possible for my own private joy.



That means that I'm not going to pay Disney any money but I am eagerly going to procure this as soon as possible for my own private joy.
It’s only $7.99 monthly (half what HBOMax charges). As soon as I’m done with Get Back, I will cancel.



It’s only $7.99 monthly (half what HBOMax charges). As soon as I’m done with Get Back, I will cancel.
I just bought the vinyl Let It Be set. I'm done. No, Disney. When you put it out on Blu-ray, we'll talk.



I will mention, as relevant to the discussion, that Peter Jackson has mentioned that his team did digitize the Nagra tapes, the half-inch recordings from the Twickenham half of the sessions, which allowed for them to create faux-stereo versions and potentially expanded and enhanced multitrack mixes of these crucial documents. I did notice a couple of these recordings show up on the Let It Be box, among the "jam" CDs, but obviously most of these recordings were from the proper multitrack sessions at Apple. I would love to see any enhanced set including the best and brightest of those initial recordings, from Jan. 2-13, from Twinkenham.



my friend was just talked about this to me other day, he said it looks pretty good
It’s good if you like The Beatles. 😎



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
It's good if you like the Beatles, history or filmmaking. It's mind-boggling if you love the Beatles.
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That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
It's good if you like the Beatles, history or filmmaking. It's mind-boggling if you love the Beatles.

Agreed and would add it should be fascinating for any singer songwriter to see the creative process of other musicians. Bonus that it's the Beatles. Ups and downs.



Much to my surprise, I watched the entire thing already. Not gonna lie: there’s a lot of tedious repetition. And I will barf if I hear another performance of Get Back.

Loved when little Heather McCartney visited the studio. Loved the Billy Preston sessions. Loved it when they finally made it to the roof.

Wonder if the two dopey girls who waited outside every day ever got invited inside?

Paul: Energetic & a perfectionist. This guy cannot settle.

John: Laid-back & funny.

George: Churlish & resentful.

Ringo: Sleepy & friendly.

Cannot believe this stuff is 50 years old. Does not look it at all.



matt72582's Avatar
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I'm about 3.5 hours in. Some interesting things I observed:

-Paul telling John, "You're the boss and you've always been the boss"
-It was cool to hear some songs that were to be released on future albums (band/solo)
-I wish they hadn't wasted so much time playing old covers not to seriously.
-Hogg is annoying, but looks like Orson Welles (he even mentions him, and John starts playing the "The Third Man" theme).
-Lennon is funny as usual.


John and Paul make some interesting statements of how "In 50 years, we can all sing", or how people in the future will be seeing this.. I heard it before, but I still find it funny Paul says, "People will think The Beatles broke up because Yoko sat on an amp"

There is a mistake with the subtitles. The interviewer asks if anyone has ever left like this (George suddenly quit) and they say:

John: "Well, Ringo" when it's OBVIOUSLY Paul.. I wonder if anyone else caught that or had similar observations.



I'm less than two hours in. Not exactly enthralling, but just pleasant and consistently slightly interesting. It's obviously really special to hear Paul just playing around on the guitar and recognize the hit that's about to come pouring out of him just jamming indiscriminately, though.

I find it charming and maybe telling how formally polite they usually are to each other: they all seem to greet each other directly, specifically, by name each morning.



While I can't imagine this being that engaging to those only passively interested in the Beatles, and would probably be almost impenetrable to those unfamiliar with them, for fanatics it is the holy grail.


So far, the film is about 90 percent people sitting around in the same room, smoking, talking, drinking, playing, joking. But because of the nature of who these people are and the historic moment it was in their career, to have this unobstructed view of these guys creating, finding their muse, struggling, I'm in a bit of heaven.


Until this moment, Mystery of Picasso was always my go to answer for a movie which shows us the creative mind of a genius. And while I'm only three hours into this so far, this is undoubtedly going to usurp that.



This film must be something, everybody's talking about it, can't wait to see it. I actually remember watching the Beatles from Shea Stadium in 1966 when it was televised on ABC.



-Hogg is annoying, but looks like Orson Welles (he even mentions him, and John starts playing the "The Third Man" theme).
Lindsay-Hogg may be the the illegitimate child of Orson Welles. From Wiki:

When Michael Lindsay-Hogg was 16, his mother reluctantly divulged that there had been pervasive rumours that his father was Orson Welles, and she denied them—but in such detail that he was left confused and dubious.  Fitzgerald evaded the subject for the rest of her life.

Lindsay-Hogg knew Welles, worked with him in the theatre, and met him at intervals throughout Welles' life. After he learned that Welles' oldest daughter, Chris, his childhood playmate, had long suspected that he was her brother, Lindsay-Hogg initiated a DNA test, which proved inconclusive. In his 2011 autobiography, Lindsay-Hogg reported that his questions were resolved by his mother's close friend Gloria Vanderbilt, who wrote that Fitzgerald had told her that Welles was his
father. A 2015 Welles biography by Patrick McGilligan, however, argues that Welles could not be the father: Fitzgerald left the U.S. for Ireland in May 1939, and was pregnant at the time she returned in late October, while Welles did not travel overseas during that period.
John: "Well, Ringo" when it's OBVIOUSLY Paul.. I wonder if anyone else caught that or had similar observations.
No, it was Ringo, who quit the band for a week during the White Album sessions.



As someone who's very familiar with the Nagra audio tapes, it can't be stressed enough how illuminating it is to see all of the non-verbal body language and facial expressions. For example, the notorious scene with George quitting has caused a lot of confusion over the years over exactly what triggered it, because the tape prior to that doesn't indicate a particularly provocative event. On film, with some excellent editing from Jackson, George's silent face tells it all. There's scores of similar instances throughout which add volumes of context. The "Peter Sellers" segment, which has Lennon fried and rambling non-sequiters while everyone chuckles along. On camera, McCartney doesn't look so amused. And of course that soon-to-be classic moment from earlier that day when McCartney quietly recognizes to himself that Lennon is already one foot out the door.


I was initially a little frustrated by the lack of complete performances. The rehearsals were fragmentary enough as it is. But I now feel that the impact of the one true full length performance - the entire rooftop concert - has a lot more impact after 7 hours of this kind of fragmentary build-up. It should be the only complete performance in the film. And having said that, I like that ep.1 includes over the end credits a version of "The Palace of the King of the Birds", a pseudo-classical original instrumental from McCartney, not complete but a coherent edit from an otherwise somewhat shambling recording from Jan. 6. I had hoped to see more recordings like these ("My Imagination", "Commonwealth/White Power", various "Dig It"s) on the Let It Be box, and the version of "Palace" here is well worth adding to one's audio collection.

In all, the suspicions of a whitewash are largely unfounded. I think this is about as accurate as it gets. Probably the most revelatory surprise was the so-called cantina tape, secretly recorded from a hidden mic. This tape, which is about 25 minutes, has been available, but in atrocious fidelity, with sounds of tinkling glasses and forks on plates making it a torture to sit through. Peter Jackson has developed some very impressive frequency extraction software which manages to make these recordings clear and discernable for the first time, and it's probably the best document from the film on the dynamic between John and Paul ("You're the boss", McCartney's demanding arrangements, etc)