We've always known the Beatles were always ahead of their time: a boy band conquering American lands with psychedelic jams. Turns out they were ahead of their time in another way, too: they turned the cameras on.
Today, pop star documentaries are a dime a dozen. The likes of P!nk, Katy Perry, and Justin Bieber have put out officially sanctioned PR missives. Some performers have allowed (still officially sanctioned) peeks behind the curtain in these films: Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish.
But nowadays cameras are ubiquitous. Back in 1969, there was a thing called "film," and it wasn't cheap. Expense, however, was rarely a consideration for a band that literally contemplated buying their own island. And so, just a few months after the band had splintered during the making of the White Album, Paul decided the group would record a back to basics record--another thing the Beatles invented--in just a few weeks while cameras captured their every move. What could go wrong?
Surprisingly little, actually, for much of the runtime of "The Beatles: Get Back," Peter Jackson's massive eight-hour documentary from the previously unused footage. Paul forced the band to record everything together, live, and the gambit seems to have paid off in forcing them to interact. It's striking how much Paul and John get along. They get high and make each other laugh. They jam with Yoko. They may not collaborate as much, but they're still able to work together, refining each other's compositions. There's also a fair amount of the serendipitous magic that seemed to follow this band around for a decade. Paul vamps on two chords one morning and suddenly has "Get Back." Billy Preston shows up to the studio to say hello and is quickly enlisted as their keyboard player. Ringo plays a goofy snippet of "Octopus' Garden" and soon George has turned it into a real song.
Storm clouds do appear, however, first in the frustrations of George. It's pretty tough to watch how this talented musician is treated by his bandmates: Paul as a kid brother, John as more of a nerd to bully. His sudden departure from the band a week into rehearsals is almost unsurprising; he was simply tired of providing minor embellishments to the tunes of others. The sudden rupture prompts much soul searching, culminating in the pinnacle of the doc: a secretly recorded conversation between John and Paul over lunch. There's basically no rancor to it, just a fascinating exchange between two musical geniuses realizing they might only be able to walk the same path for so long.
If there's a fly in the ointment of this doc--and truth be told, the problem is big enough that it's more of a grizzly bear in a trailer park--it's that it was put together by Peter Jackson. Between the end of "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King," a totally unnecessary three-hour "King Kong," and not one but three Hobbit films, perhaps no living director has proven more willing to waste his audience's time. Want ten minutes with a record executive talking about publishing rights? Want to see the band sit around for an entire morning while the recording engineer tries to get the sound right? Want to see several different half-assed performances of "Stand By Me" when the band gets sick of its own material? Too bad!
The piece is a significant historical document nonetheless. There's plenty of evidence in the documentary that the Beatles were on their last legs. But the consolation prize is the evidence of all the great moments still to come for them. Paul ponders buying a farm in Scotland. John sings a couple lines with the vocal melody from "Imagine." (The words are different, but it's clear the song was already banging around his head.) George tries to get the band to do "All Things Must Pass"; John tries to mess with the lyrics, but George would have the last laugh.
The documentary's most poignant moment comes after George has quit and John has failed to show up one morning. "And then there were two," Paul says, with tears in his eyes. But--just at that moment--the phone rings. It's John. Lady luck was often on these lads' side.
