The rarely seen and often misunderstood cinéma verité Beatles documentary “Let It Be,” mostly unseen since the 1980s, is now available on Disney+, courtesy of a remastered treatment from Peter Jackson.
At a brief 81 minutes, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s film is a rougher document than its companion piece, the sweeping, textured, 468-minute “Get Back” docuseries Jackson created out of the salvaged outtakes from Lindsay-Hogg’s 1969 shoot.
“Let It Be” is contextless, a fly-on-the-wall document of a band rehearsing and recording songs for their twelfth and final studio album “Let It Be;” allowing the creative sparks to fly and land where they may. It’s of historical interest because those songs, presented here in utero, would go on to become some of the most beloved tunes of the twentieth century, and are performed by Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, who, at that moment, were the most famous musicians on the planet.
At its release, the film was picked apart by critics like the Observer, who called it “a bore… clumsily edited, uninformative and naïve.” Presented without a storyline, shot on 16 mm and blown up to 35 mm for theatrical release, it was grainy and dark, both visually and in tone.
Released in May 1970, just a month after the band’s very public divorce, “Let It Be” became ground zero for Beatles conspiracists who analyzed the footage, looking for clues as to why the world’s most beloved band blew apart. Was Paul the bad guy? Did Yoko Ono cause a fissure between band members? The movie is singlehandedly responsible for much of the mythology surround the band’s breakup.
But the new film, restored from the original 16mm negative with sparkling remastered sound, reveals something else. There are moments of tension, notably between McCartney and Harrison, but in the new, cleaned up version, the gloom has lifted to reveal a literal band of brothers making art under extraordinary circumstances.
The sessions came just months after the recording of the “White Album,” and were meant to be a return to their roots in the wake of the death of their manager Brian Epstein, press scrutiny and internal tensions. Their relationships may have been frayed by external pressures, but a closer look at ”Let It Be,” free from the furor of the break-up that coloured the 1970 release, reveals the shared joy of creation.
There is a certain level of performance in “Let it Be,” like Paul making love to the camera as he sings an early version of the title track, but mostly what gives the film its punch is that it is an unvarnished look at four very public people at the height of their fame, unencumbered by the spin of publicist or the glare of the spotlight.
I join John Moore, host of NewsTalk 1010’s “Moore in the Morning” to explain how I can connect emotionally with “Now and Then,” the new song from the Beatles, without loving the tune.
Richard joins guest host Tamara Cherry and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush for Booze and Reviews! Today he talks about Rob Roy, the drink, not the movie, and reviews the Disney+ doc “The Beatles: Get Back,” the animated “Encanto” and Lady Gaga in “House of Gucci.”
Richard joins NewsTalk 1010’s “Moore in the Morning” host John Moore to talk about the reopening of the classic concert hall, Toronto’s Massey Hall, and Peter Jackson’s 468 minute documentary “The Beatles: Get Back.”
“The Beatles: Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s 468-minute documentary on the making of the Beatles’ final album “Let it Be,” now streaming on Disney+, asks music fans to rethink some commonly held beliefs about John, Paul, George and Ringo’s January 1969 recording sessions and the demise of the band.
The fifty-plus-year-old fly-on-the-wall footage, originally shot for Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary “Let It Be,” has been salvaged, cleaned up and portrays a band that may be frayed at the edges, worn thin from years of constant pressure and the recent loss of their manager Brian Epstein, but still able to create timeless music. The film puts to rest notions that Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles, or that George’s frustrations with his role split them apart, or that ego drove a wedge in the group or that manager Allen Klein’s aggressive business practices were to blame.
The real culprit? Familiarity. Stress. Who knows?
What is made clear by “Get Back” is that there was no one thing that led to one of the most public band divorces in rock history.
The downer atmosphere of Lindsay-Hogg’s documentary is missing. With the restored, sparkling audio and picture comes a new, sunnier take on those recording sessions. The bond between the band members is clear, even if tensions arise from time to time.
There is a definite family vibe between them, made stronger when McCartney’s wife Linda and daughter Heather are on the scene, playfully interacting with the most famous musicians in the world. Linda and Yoko chat, roadie Mal Evans cavorts and Lennon introduces the band as “The Bottles” as they work their way through songs like “Get Back” (the writing of which takes up a substantial chunk of the film), “Let it Be” and “I’ve Got a Feeling.” At the end of the final take of “Let it Be” Lennon playfully says, “I think that was rather grand. I’d take one home with me.”
It’s fascinating to see them take the germ of an idea and massage it into fruition. It shows the camaraderie, the experimentation, tension, tedium and talent it takes to mold a thought into a song.
Along the way there are charged moments. John and Paul earnestly discuss George’s (temporary) retirement from the band. There’s a candid conversation between Paul and the studio techs about John and Yoko’s relationship, off-the-cuff performances of old rockers from the band’s Hamburg days like “Rock ‘n Roll Music,” and, of course, the climatic rooftop concert on London’s Savile Row.
Mostly though, it’s an intimate window into the professional and personal world of the Beatles. At upwards of 8 hours (spread over three episodes) it’s a hang out film for fans. There is no real narrative momentum, save for disagreements with Lindsay-Hogg regarding what form a live performance of the new songs will take, just a remarkable, exhaustive document that sheds new light on Beatles folklore.
The Guardians of the Galaxy, who made their first appearance in print in 1969, bear very little resemblance to the team of superheroes who will grace the big screen this weekend.
Conspiculous by his absence in the original book is Rocket Raccoon, the heroic character voiced by Bradley Cooper in the film. The feisty raccoon appeared years later, created by writer Bill Mantlo and illustrator Keith Giffen, who named the masked creature in tribute to the Beatles’ tune Rocky Raccoon.
They confirmed the Beatle’s influence in 1982 with a story that paraphrased John and Paul’s lyrics for the title. Called Now Somewhere In the Black Holes of Sirius Major There Lived a Young Boy Named Rocket Raccoon, the book saw the Hulk and Rocket Raccoon stop a villain from stealing Gideon’s Bible.
Rocket is latest raccoon, but not the only, to become a mammalian movie star.
Recently Liam Neeson starred in the animated movie The Nut Job, playing the imaginatively named Raccoon, the patriarch of a park, who might not have the best interests of the other animals top of mind.
The sixty-two year old Irish actor says he had never seen a raccoon until he was in his thirties, shooting an episode of Miami Vice in Florida. “Seeing this thing use his little paws and actually lifting a lid of a garbage can, peering in,” he says, “was quite sinister because it almost had a human quality to it, quite sneaky. I just had never seen a raccoon in my life before and the impression stayed with me.”
Other animated raccoons have worked steadily. Meeko, the raccoon from Disney’s Pocahontas and Pocahontas ll: Journey to a New World cartoon also makes appearances in Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse and in the Pocahontas video game. Then there’s RJ from Over the Hedge, a lovable raccoon voiced by Bruce Willis. “The rascally charm Bruce Willis brought to Moonlighting makes RJ a lovable rogue, or at least a likable one,” said director Karey Kirkpatrick.
Real-life raccoons are also getting work—in films like Rascal and The Details—but according to director Steve Carr they can present some problems. Tough guy actor Michael Rappaport voiced Joey, the consigliere raccoon, in Dr. Dolittle 2. The film featured over-250 four-legged cast members—including wolves, giraffes, bears, possums, raccoons, dogs, and owls—so Carr says, “A huge percentage of our work was waiting for the animals to do what they’re trained to do. And the patience that was needed well, it felt at times as if it were Herculean.”
Check out Richard’s cineplex.com article on Monty Python as the Beatles of Comedy.
“’I’ve got two legs from my hips to the ground, and when I move them, they walk around,’ isn’t a line with the elegance of, ‘Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,’ but it is a lot funnier.
“Comparing the work of Monty Python and The Beatles might seem like equating apples to oranges, or guitars to crunchy frogs, but it really isn’t that much of a stretch. Eric (Idle), Graham (Chapman), Michael (Palin), John (Cleese) and a couple of Terrys (Gilliam and Jones) have a lot in common with John, Paul, George and Ringo.
“Monty Python has been called the most influential comedy troupe of all time. Their absurdist brand…” Read the whole thing HERE!
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From today’s issue: The Songs of Life! “We all have a few of those songs. You know, when you hear those first few notes and you’re instantly transported back to time when you probably still felt comfortable in a bathing suit or had lots more hair? Today on Canada AM, we talked about those defining songs – songs that served as a backdrop to your meaningful moments, or songs that changed the way you thought about yourself. For Bev it was Paradise by the Dashboard Light. For Marci, Janet Jackson’s Control. For Richard, it was any track off My Aim is True by Elvis Costello. For Denise, I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston Lots of you shared your songs with us on Twitter and Facebook, and it was so fun to walk down all of our memory lanes. Appropriately, the first song I ever remember taking into my heart… In My LIfe by the Beatles. Have a great weekend everyone!” – @amproducerjen
Ever since Broadway producers figured out that nostalgia starved baby boomers would pay big bucks to see the songs of their youth reinterpreted for their old age, shows based on rock and pop songs have sprung up with the frequency of grey hairs on Grace Slick’s head.
We Will Rock You stitches together Queen songs, Jersey Boys is the story of The Four Seasons, illustrated with the band’s top forty hits while Movin’ Out is the best of Billy Joel with dancers and an orchestra. The latest classic rock catalogue to be pillaged is one of the most sacred of all—The Beatles. Taking her lead from Broadway, director Julie Taymor takes us on a Magical Mystery Tour of the tumultuous late 1960s with a soundtrack by Lennon and McCartney in the new film Across the Universe. No actual Beatles were harmed in the making of this story, but I imagine Beatles’ purists will feel hard done by.
Jude (Jim Sturgess) and Lucy (the amazing Evan Rachel Wood) are from different worlds. He’s a dock worker in Liverpool who travels to America to find his estranged father; she’s a rich kid from Ohio whose brother Max (Joe Anderson) and boyfriend are drafted and sent to Vietnam. When her boyfriend doesn’t come back she becomes involved in the anti-war movement and along the way finds new love with the visitor from England.
The music of The Beatles is no stranger to the big screen. In recent years the I Am Sam soundtrack brimmed with covers of Beatle tunes while Happy Feet, Kicking and Screaming and countless others have cannibalized the Beatles catalogue. The most famous use of their tunes is likely the film that Across the Universe’s producers would most like us to forget—the ghastly, yet tortuously enjoyable Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Where that movie featured the likes of George Burns warbling For the Benefit of Mr. Kite, the new film has bona fide rock stars Joe Cocker and Bono making cameo appearances.
Across the Universe, it has to be said, doesn’t look like any other movie you’ll see this year. Taymor’s trademarked visual sense is very much on display and will knock the eyeballs right out of your head. Colors pop, an Uncle Sam poster comes to life singing I Want You (She’s So Heavy) and football players bash one another in a hilariously over-the-top ballet of athletic grace. A draft induction scene is a virtuoso piece of filmmaking, and the song fragment She’s So Heavy is so laden with metaphor it’s as subtle as a wallop from Maxwell’s fabled silver hammer.
Unfortunately the movie isn’t nearly as interesting sonically as it is visually. Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge set the bar very high in its use of pop and rock, grafting together songs and genres into a unique aural landscape that gave the movie much of its punch and vigor. Here the songs are laid out in a fairly straightforward manner. A gospel version of Let it Be is memorable, but many of the intpretations simply sound like Broadway fluff or, even worse, American Idol Does The Beatles!
The story lurches along, predictably, from one set piece to another, with no real purpose other than to give the exceptionally good looking cast a reason to burst into song. I’m still trying to figure out why the character of Prudence appears in the film other than to facilitate the singing of Dear Prudence. The underlying themes of the movie—the anti-war message and America’s renewed image as the beacon of violent imperialism—are timely for sure, but get muddled in the trite story and the haze of boomerititus that infects every frame of the film.
Given the success of other recent boomer rock musicals, the familiar tunes of Across the Universe should be enough to please fans of musical theatre and first generation Beatles’s fans, but it is the film’s visual flair that’ll make an impression.
