The long and winding road of “The Beatles: Get Back” circles back to “Let it Be.”
Nearly three years after hosting Peter Jackson’s sprawling “Let it Be” postscript, Disney + returns to director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original 1970 film, which was released just after the Beatles’ split was announced. Long unavailable and restored by Jackson, “Let it Be” premieres May 8.
“It (the breakup) very much darkened the perception of the film,” Lindsay-Hogg said in a statement.
“But, in fact, how often do you get to see artists of this stature working together to make what they hear in their heads into songs? And then you get to the roof and you see their excitement, camaraderie and sheer joy in playing together again as a group and know, as we do now, that it was the final time, and we view it with full understanding of who they were and still are and a little poignancy.”
Jackson, who created “Get Back” with 60 hours of Lindsay-Hogg-shot footage, sees the two movies as complementary rather than competing.
“I now think of it all as one epic story, finally completed after five decades,” he said in a statement.
“The two projects support and enhance each other: ‘Let it Be’ is the climax of ‘Get Back,’ while ‘Get Back’ provides a vital missing context for ‘Let it Be.’”
Jay Mehler and Lee Starkey, and Pattie Boyd and Rod Weston attend the Exclusive UK 100-Minute Preview Screening of The Beatles: Get Back at Cineworld Leicester Square in London on November 16, 2021.