The Beatles: Get Back: The fascinating last days of the band

The Beatles: Get Back directed by the Lord of the Rings trilogy helmer Peter Jackson, is the latest entry of an otherwise long list of documentaries based on the best selling music act of all time. This one here chronicles behind-the-scenes footage of the now-infamous documentary, Let It Be; which highlighted the tensions brewing between band members and the output generated while making their eponymous final album. While the documentary was praised for the vision and its "fly-on-the-wall" guerilla-style filmmaking; it was criticized for not having much of a narrative to drive home.

Get Back, however, uses footage unearthed 50 years in the vault post the band's breakup, and Peter Jackson conjures up a narrative that not only contextualizes the tension between each of the band members but also imbues the creative processes that eventually became their final album released (Abbey Road, however, was the final album they've worked together but it released before Let It Be).

This constitutes 60 hours of footage and condensed up to nearly 8 hours of edited footage split into three parts (Jackson loves his trilogy format and this is no exception), and the documentary does something strangely revealing unlike other documentaries based on The Beatles; it may have rewritten the band's history as we know it.

Get Back covers the making of the forthcoming album, Let It Be, an eponymously titled documentary based on the making of the album, and an unannounced surprise concert that would eventually become the band's final performance together, the iconic 42-minute rooftop concert. But Let It Be documentary skips over many key moments in the creation of the album by which Get Back has now shown with no filter. Sure some footage is replayed over some of the audio conversations to give it a close recreation of it, but it's done in a way you have to look under a microscope to look at it.

It also shows the band having fun while writing and composing songs together despite their initial days at Twickenham Studios where most of the tensions were rising due to several reasons, which is highlighted in the first part of the episode which is the longest of the 3-part miniseries.

It documents their days at Twickenham Studios by which they've got to rehearse and record the album as they only have 2 weeks to perform in it due to its unavailability as the studio is occupied for the shoot for Ringo's forthcoming movie with Peter Sellers.

This also leads to immense pressure from the band as they have difficulty in composing songs as the time was running out. Just when things couldn't get any worse, the lead guitarist George Harrison abruptly left the band midway due to his input being constantly ignored by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The episode also highlights the creation of the first single of the album Get Back, which seemingly comes out of nowhere when Paul just begins to play the bass and that song would later become a protest song against the anti-immigration movement happening in the UK. The episode ends with a meeting intended to mediate, but as the title cards say, "The meeting did not go well".

The second part, however, absolves all of the tensions when the band decides to move away from Twickenham to their home production studio, Apple Studio where George is convinced to join back after another fruitful meeting. Here, we could see the dynamic between the members get a bit more eased up and jollier than ever before, especially John Lennon's razor wit and childlike glee, the arrival of Billy Preston in Apple Studio whom the band immediately take him up as their keyboardist, and Paul's stepdaughter Heather has some moments as well (the one where Yoko Ono does her infamous "yelling" while the band was jamming is hilarious with Heather's reaction and herself mimicking Yoko later in the act).

The episode ends with the location finalized for the concert as they all decide to play at the rooftop of the Apple Corps building. The third part covers mostly the iconic 42-minute rooftop concert with such classics as "Don't Let Me Down", "Get Back", "I've Got A Feeling", and "Dig A Pony". This marked a crucial moment in the band's history as you could see they were all at their best when they were performing live for an unsuspecting audience. You could see the glee in Paul's face when cops arrive to tell them to reduce the sound of the amp (something he wanted to do at the very beginning).

There are also revealing moments where one of them involving George and John talk about their respective futures and reveal a what-if scenario: if the band members took a hiatus and worked on their solo projects, the Beatles could've been together as they could come back after working on their solo efforts.

Paul McCartney who was accused of being an authoritative band "leader" after the band's breakup actually comes off as a guy who's trying his darndest to keep the band together. George Harrison on the other hand, who's known to be the "Quiet Beatle", here displays his frustration and passion in his inputs, when you see him leave you'd understand why he decided to do so as he's conveniently ignored by John and Paul. John Lennon here is more laidback, funny and of course, profusely swears albeit more casually than his bandmates. And of course, Ringo Starr is criminally underrated as a drummer, he instantly gets the rhythm of the song (Paul calls him a metronome and here you could see why) while also having the least amount of arguments within each of the band members.

The greatness of this documentary however is the restoration of the 50 plus-year-old footage and audio recordings. Sure, some of the closeups of the people look smoothened out, but to see how far film restoration has advanced, this is a great case study as to why it is so important. To see the band in pristine 4K with beautiful color palettes in the Twickenham recording sessions, the audio clippings of every conversation restored for further clarity (thanks to AI), and of course how the songs sounded during recording are all done so miraculously, you'd swear you're watching current footage. This took Peter Jackson 4 years of hard work to bring this to us and I might say this might be his best work since his other famous trilogy: The Lord of The Rings.