The Beatles: Get Back

Directed by Peter Jackson (best known for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, among others), The Beatles: Get Back is not unlike Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s Summer of Soul, in the sense that it takes forgotten or otherwise never-before-released footage from 1969 and offers nothing short of a deep and intimate look at its musical subject matter. In this case, obviously, it’s the Beatles—and not just that, but with a focus on a pivotal 21 days in January 1969, in the midst of the sessions that would become the albums Abbey Road and Let It Be.

All of this is explained in the get-go for the trailer for this three-part docuseries. (While more expansive than a movie, when one considered there was over 57 hours of footage in total to cull from, Jackson shows restraint.) The first song choice, “Don’t Let Me Down”, feels like an oblique reference to the pressure on the band at the time.

Of course, besides being the content focus, their music also acts to structure this unusually long, 4-minute trailer (more of a preview, arguably). The first marker is at 0:27 as the introductory title cards finish and the band completes its take of “Don’t Let Me Down” (the music having begun earlier, acting as a sound bridge for the footage of the studio performance). We see and hear a synch point at 0:27 as John Lennon audibly snaps his fingers, both in synch with the final beat of the song and as we see the final opening title card (“… until now”), wrapping up the introduction.

The fact that the group had to record their album in this time lends it a sense of narrative cohesion—there is a goal; what’s interesting of course is how exactly they did it. People are interested in the creative process of musicians, and often that process gets dramatized on screen as a necessity—Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocketman come to mind. It’s quite another thing, however, when George Harrison asks “how many have we already recorded good enough” (0:57), and Lennon stares back, and says “none”—and we know, or at least can effortlessly believe, it’s quite real. It’s the ultimate reality television for music aficionados.

1:17 offers the next synch point, where we see Ringo catch a cymbal as “I’ve Got A Feeling” stops in the soundtrack, which then leads to some studio banter. This turns into “I Me Mine”, and much more in the way of dialogue as the trailer proceeds to focus on some key moments around how the band began to unravel, such as the moment George Harrison quits.

The song cuts short at 1:58, to some older footage of the Beatles bowing out at a show, with a fade to black.—this looks to be much earlier in the decade, at least.

Things turn a bit more sentimental for the next segment, and of course “Let It Be” is the song to accompany it. We hear Paul rallying the band against the iconic piano chords, saying “the best bit of us has always been and always will be […] backs against the wall”; the power of the sentiment only grows knowing what would happen.

At 2:46, the music transitions seamlessly from “Let It Be” to “Get Back”, taking advantage of the fact that the latter is fairly similar in tempo. At 3:44 that music fades out, after the main title card, showing us the band preparing for their final, rooftop concert. Here we get some unusually theatrical percussion, a signal for the momentous occasion that will be showing the entire rooftop concert in its entirety for the first time. The trailer ends with Paul counting in on four.

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the Beatles’ music is what pulls together the narrative arc. “Down Let Me Down” offers a mid-tempo opener, “I’ve Got a Feeling” and “I Me Mine” ramp it up, “Let It Be” is an uplifting centrepiece, and “Get Back” was the only rational choice for the closer. The song fits the title as well as the narrative—the story of how and why the Beatles played that final concert, and got back to live performance—at least, one last time. Throughout, a variety of synch points and transitions between sound and image guide the audioviewer through the trailer’s four minutes, helping it to feel narratively cohesive, and, if anything, not long enough.

The docuseries The Beatles: Get Back premieres on Disney Plus in late November.

— Curtis Perry