Beatles doc brings us back to that shared place we once belonged
Watching Peter Jackson’s documentary “The Beatles: Get Back” streaming on Disney+ was a split experience — utterly pedestrian but transplendent and deeply moving.
It was tedious slogging through eight hours of interrupted rehearsal takes, repetitive chit-chat and countless cigarettes, bottles of beer and slices of marmaladed toast consumed in London recording studios during 1969’s opening weeks. Dramatic cinema — and musicmaking — it wasn’t.
Yet thanks to Jackson’s extraordinary digital restoration, along with unfettered access the band gave original director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for an intended behind-the-scenes concert film, the intimate, immediate quality of the three-part miniseries is riveting. It wasn’t just who the four lads were (though they displayed their creative genius even just riffing around) but also when they were, at least for those of us who came of age during their reign.
Source: Allan Ripp/nypost.com