For decades, the attitude toward the documentary Let It Be in the Beatles camp was, “Rest in Peace.” But he finally gets to see the movie again. A restored version of the 1970 film brought fans the 2021 Peter Jackson documentary series The Beatles: Get Back, which uses outtakes from the original film directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. It will soon be released on the same service, Disney+.
The documentary will be rebroadcast on Disney+ on May 8th, but it will definitely be a red letter day for Beatles fans who have spent most of their lives wondering if the film would ever be taken out of the vault again. right. Not only has the 1970 film been dusted off, but Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Production has used the same techniques used to bring back the look and sound of the vintage footage of The Beatles: Get Back. was restored.
The original film is infamous for being the only item in the Beatles catalog that Apple seems to have wanted to suppress rather than exploit. “Let It Be” has not been officially distributed in any form since his early 1980s, but muddy bootlegs are widely available. These boots are a departure from his VHS and laserdisc versions that came out at the beginning of the home video revolution. This movie wasn't released during his DVD days, much less available on Blu-Ray or streaming.
Jackson assembled “The Beatles: Get Back” using hours of outtakes from Lindsay Hogg footage. During the project's publicity campaign, he said that the novel treatment of the material would complement the original film, not permanently replace it, and that the original doc would eventually be re-screened and He repeatedly vowed that it would function as a sister work.
“I'm really excited that Michael's film 'Let It Be' has been restored and is finally being re-released after decades of being unavailable,” Jackson said in a statement. “I was very lucky to have Michael's 'Get Back' outtakes. I always thought 'Let It Be' was needed to complete the 'Get Back' story. The three-part documentary featured Michael and the Beatles filming a groundbreaking new documentary, the film they released in 1970. is. I now believe that all of this is one epic story that has finally been completed after 50 years. The two projects support and strengthen each other. “Let It Be” is the climax of “Get Back,” and “Get Back” provides the important context that “Let It Be” lacks. Michael Lindsay-Hogg was always supportive and kind while I was making Get Back. It's no surprise that his original film has the final say…it looks and sounds much better than it did in 1970. ”
During the “Get Back” campaign, Jackson told Variety that he thought “Let It Be” was unfairly characterized as depressing. One of the reasons for this is not only that this song was released right after the Beatles disbanded, but also because of the song's color scheme. His 16 mm film, released in 1970, had a sombre atmosphere and was suitable for dark interpretations. “Get Back” has a more colorful look, which also seems to apply to what Jackson's team is doing now with original elements from “Let It Be.”
But in addition, Jackson's team took a new crack at the 1970 film's audio. A press statement said: “With the full support of Lindsay-Hogg, Apple will meticulously restore the film from the original 16mm negative to Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Production. This included lovingly remastering the sound using the same MAL demix.'' This is the technology applied in the “Get Back” documentary series. ”
Lindsay Hogg expressed support for the new initiative in a statement. “'Let It Be' was ready for release in October or November 1969, but it wasn't released until April 1970,” he recalled. “The Beatles officially broke up a month before its release. So people went to see 'Let It Be' with sadness in their hearts, thinking, 'We'll never see the Beatles together again.' It was. I'll never have that joy again.'' This made my perception of this movie very dark. But how often do you actually see artists of this stature putting what they hear in their heads together into a song? And then we go up to the rooftop and we see their excitement, their camaraderie, the sheer joy of playing together again as a group, and we know, just like we do now, that this was the last time, and we're all in awe of who's who. or look at it with complete understanding. They were and still are a little heartbroken. I was blown away by what Peter was able to do with Get Back, using all the footage I shot 50 years ago. ”
Lindsay Hogg detailed the new restoration in an interview with The New York Times published Tuesday. “When Peter first showed me some restored images from the film, one of them was a shot of the Beatle couple from behind, and in the original their hair looked very bunched up. '' said the director. “Then he said, 'Come on, let me show you what we've been working on.' It's the same shot, but you can see every single hair. The new version is a 21st century version of a 20th century movie. It's certainly brighter and more lively than what ended up on videotape. It looks like it was intended for 1969 or 1970 now, but at my request Peter gave it a more cinematic feel than Get Back, which had a slightly more modern, digital feel. It was given to me. ”
Some viewers of the 1970 film, as well as some of the Beatles themselves, gawked at the depiction of tense interactions during the production of what would eventually become the album Let It Be. It seemed like that. It will be interesting to see whether Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr give a more positive review that approaches Jackson's latter-day praise.
Restoration work on the film reportedly began in the 1990s and again in the 2000s, with an eye toward a possible DVD or theatrical release. It is widely believed that previous restorations were abandoned due to disinterest on the part of the surviving Beatles, but Paul McCartney said in a 2016 interview that he was not stranded and was committed to efforts to make the documentary available again. He said that he is encouraging.