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It’s Jan. 29, 1969, and director Michael Lindsay-Hogg has a problem. He has just days to improvise an ending for his film withthe Beatles, and they are not making it easy for him. This is keeping with the theme of the month-long production, a logistical nightmare that has morphed from a television concert special into a cinéma vérité documentary midway through the shoot. The intimate scenes of the band writing and rehearsing are extraordinary, but he needs a finale, a climax, some kind of payoff — one that doesn’t subject them to the hassles and hysteria that plagued their touring life at the height of Beatlemania. For a time, one idea seemed to stick: an unannounced performance on the roof of the group’s Apple Records headquarters in Central London. The semi-public nature of the gig seemed like a good compromise. Yet now, huddled in their studio six stories beneath the proposed venue, there’s dissent in their ranks.
With deadlines looming, Lindsay-Hogg is left with the unenviable task of extracting a rapid decision from his mercurial subjects, who also happen to be the most famous people on the planet. “What are we going to do? I’m going crazy,” he wails. “I mean, I know that’s what I’msupposedto do, but I’m really going crazy…We ought to figure out what we’re going to do.“Paul McCartneytries to talk him off the ledge, butGeorge Harrisonis less convinced of the whole rooftop scheme. “You mean, you still are expecting us to be on the chimney with a lot of people, or something like that?”
“George, George — ‘expecting’ is not a word we use anymore,” Lindsay-Hogg replies, his theatrical exasperation barely masking the very real sensation just below the surface. Bossing around a Beatle would definitely not have the desired effect. Instead, he offers “thinking about” and “hoping” as more appropriate phrases for the indecisive collective. Harrison remains unmoved. “You know, whatever. I’ll do it if we’ve got to go on the roof. But, I mean, I don’twantto go…‘Course I don’t want to go on the roof!” It’s an inauspicious start for one of the most fabled concerts in rock history, which took place the following afternoon.
The fact that Lindsay-Hogg was able to complete a film at all under such conditions is a minor miracle. Yet the problems continued even after shooting wrapped. Delayed for over a year due to the Beatles’ mounting business disputes, the documentary hit theaters in May 1970, just weeks after the bandpublicly announced their split. The timing of its release ensured that it would forever be linked with unhappy news. The fact that it had been filmed nearly a year and a half earlier seemed to matter little.
Let It Bewas a victim of history. Over the subsequent decades, it’s been maligned as a dismal document of their dissolution. Even the Beatles distanced themselves from the project, declining to attend the premiere and ultimately withdrawing it from home video in the early ’80s. Its scarcity has further harmed its reputation; older fans are forced to rely on their initial impressions, often formed in the bitter aftermath of the breakup, and many younger fans are unable to access the film (outside of grainy bootlegs) to judge for themselves. The result is a negative feedback loop that continues to this day.
Lindsay-Hogg accepts these critiques with good humor — he’s had practice over the years — but he understandably finds it all a bit galling. “Let It Became out a month after they said they were breaking up, so people said, ‘Oh, it’s the breakup movie.’ Well, it wasn’t,” he explains. “It’s frustrating because it colored the wayLet It Behas been looked at for 50 years. When Ringo says, ‘Well, I don’t like the movie…’ he hasn’t seen it for 50 years and doesn’t really know what’s in it anymore.”
To be sure, the film is filled withplayful jams, jokes and touching momentsthat depict their close friendship. But gone are the days when the Beatles were the four-headed monster (as Mick Jagger called them), clad in identical Dougie Millings suits and Anello & Davide boots, joined at the hip through endless nights sharing stages and hotel rooms. “Watching [Let It Be], you get a sense that they’re not young men anymore,” says Lindsay-Hogg. “John is 28, Paul is 26, George is 25, Ringo is 28. They were pulling apart not because of enmity, but because they just were starting to go in different directions. All their performing success was behind them. They just didn’t want to do it anymore.”
Weeks after the shoot, the Beatles embarked on what would be theirfinal tour before retiring from live concerts. For the next two years, the band existed solely as a studio entity. Lindsay-Hogg wouldn’t work with them again until the fall of 1968, when he was recruited to direct visuals for the songs “Hey Jude” and “Revolution.” The former featured the band performing on a soundstage at Twickenham Studios amid an assembled crowd of onlookers representing all manner of races, sexes and creeds. The simulated gig proved immensely enjoyable for the Beatles. It was the best of both worlds: all the fun of a live show within a safely stage-managed studio bubble. The experience sparked the notion of a full-scale televised concert.
A posse of assistants got their malaria shots and were poised to scope out the location when the film lost a star. On Jan. 10, Harrison walked out of the rehearsals and announced that he was leaving the band. Though hardly expected, it was also not completely out of the blue. The tensions that had set inwhile recording The White Album the previous yearhad magnified.Yoko Onooften gets the blame due to her constant presence (at Lennon’s urging). Though her attendance undoubtedly disrupted the delicate interpersonal dynamic, numerous factors led to their dissatisfaction, ranging from Lennon’s substance abuse issues, the clinical atmosphere of the soundstage, and even the early morning call times. Harrison’s frustration over his second-class status in the band was merely the most acute of the issues.
Rehearsals at drafty Twickenham soundstage were abandoned, and the group decamped to their new studio in the basement of their Apple Records office building to continue work on what was shaping up to be a new album. Lindsay-Hogg recalibrated his shoot as quickly as he could. “Overnight we went from doing a television special to making a documentary,” he laughs. “Okay, you gotta roll with it. I mean, these are the Beatles after all! I suppose we could have stopped, but we thought we’ve put [all this effort] into this. Plus, no one had ever seen the Beatles rehearse before. No one had ever seen how they make music. No one had seen how they interact with each other creatively.” And so, it was decided, the show would go on.
Ethan A. Russell / © Apple Corps Ltd.
The studio sessions were significantly more cheerful than the soundstage rehearsals, but soon it became obvious that some sort of common goal was required to structure the documentary. “We needed to have someplace where this was going,” says Lindsay-Hogg. “Yes, we could have rehearsals of ‘The Long and Winding Road’ on day one, day four, day five…It’s a great song, we should all be so lucky! But even though it was the Beatles, the treads in the tire were getting a bit thin because we weren’t going anywhere with this stuff. We needed to have a conclusion of the work we’d been doing. It seemed to me we ought to do some kind of performance.” Something unusual, something visually compelling, and — crucially — something quick.
Eventually they warmed to the idea, and preparations were hastily carried out for a show on Jan. 30. An impromptu stage was constructed out of scaffolding planks, and yards of cords and cables were snaked down the stairwell to the recording console in the basement. Lindsay-Hogg dispatched an army of cameramen to cover the concert from all angles, sending a crew into the street, onto adjacent buildings, into the Apple reception area, plus five on the roof itself.
Ethan A. Russell/Apple Corps Ltd
Lindsay-Hogg got his ending for the documentary, and it was better than he could have ever anticipated. “I didn’t expect how thrilled they were to be playing together. I mean, it was a weird occasion. We’re on the roof, the crowd’s down below, the police came up. It wasn’t quite what anybody was expecting, but they really loved playing with each other. You see it in the way they look at each other when they smile, the way they harmonize with each other, and the way they get on with each other. It’s really beautiful. And they know that what’s happening with them is special.” Though they weren’t physically at the Cavern, they may have well been. For 42-minutes, they turned back the clock. As they ran through nine songs, the pressures that had been building for years were lifted. Even Harrison cracked a smile.
Like all good things, it couldn’t last. Once the music ended, business woes took centerstage and the future of theLet It Beproject was cast into doubt. “It got shunted aside because Apple was imploding and the Beatles were fracturing. The issues were financial, but then financial problems always turn personal. Things which had been brewing subterraneanly between the four of them blew up. Don’t forget, they’d been together since they were 15 and 16. There were various grudges and old rancor, and so then they broke up.” By the time the documentary saw the light of day in May of 1970, the now ex-Beatles could hardly care less. As far as they were concerned, it was ancient history.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg.Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Lindsay-Hogg first learned of Jackson’s involvement three years ago after getting a call from Jonathan Clyde, the Director of Production at Apple. “He invited me to tea and said, ‘Peter Jackson’s seen some of your footage and he’s interested in having a whack at. How would you feel about that?’ And I felt great, because I don’t want to do it again. Ididit. I don’t want go in the cutting room and have to look at 56 hours again. I didn’t want to be involved in the cut at all, but every so often [Peter] would email and say, ‘Do you remember what happened on day six?’ Or, ‘What do you think of this little bit?’ So he’s been very inclusive.”
Rather than worry that Jackson’s documentary will supplant his own, Lindsay-Hogg sees the two projects as complementary works that collectively offer a full portrait of this fascinating period in the Beatles' final year together. “They’re totally different movies made 50 years apart. They’re not competitive in any way. One’s this and one’s that. I’m looking forward to seeing the fullness of Peter’s work, because he’s been very, very sympathetic towardLet It Be.”
Naturally, Jackson’s film will be more comprehensive, simply because he’s working with a much larger canvas. Lindsay-Hogg’s film was 89 minutes, compared to Jackson’s 468 minutes spread over three installments. And also, Jackson contended with far fewer editorial constraints than Lindsay-Hogg. Decades removed from the animosity of their split, the surviving Beatles have mellowed and taken a sunnier view of their own history and legacy. “Peter was dealing with an entirely different set of plates and cutlery than I was,” says Lindsay-Hogg. “I know that he used some of the stuff that I cut out.” Back in the ’60s, the Fabs were a little more particular about what scenes made it into the film. “The first rough cut I showed them was 40 minutes longer than what played in the end. There were a few things that they wanted out, which they indicated to me. They weren’t saying, ‘Well, you got to take that out!’ It was more like, ‘Do we reallyneedthat…?’ That was their way of putting it.”
Among these moments were anything that hinted at Harrison’s temporary walkout. “One of them said, ‘George didn’t [officially]leave. So why put it in the movie?’ At that time they were still together, and we easily cut it out,” he explains. “They weren’t against being portrayed as they actually were: people changing, becoming more mature, going their different ways but loving each other — all of that. But they wanted ideally for the Beatles to appear to be intact at the end of the movie.”
Jackson, on the other hand, had no such restrictions. He also had access to a remarkable piece of audio that documented the moment of Harrison’s exit, a legendary exchange in which the guitarist (reportedly) delivered the withering parting line, “See you ‘round the clubs.” The incident occurred during lunch, a time when Lindsay-Hogg’s crew weren’t usually present. But sensing a storm brewing, the director got creative. “When I knew there was something going on [between them], I bugged a flower pot at lunch. But I didn’t get what I wanted, because there was too much ambient noise. The flower pot mic picked up the cutlery sounds.” ForGet Back, Jackson employed cutting-edge technology to strip away the extraneous noise, revealing this conversation, and many others, for the first time.
In Lindsay-Hogg’s opinion, Jackson’s forensic mind and intense passion make him the ideal steward of this cache of unreleasedLet It Befootage. “Technically, Peter’s movie is going to be fascinating to watch. But also, he loves the Beatles. He’s turned out to be a really wonderful guy. Not only talented, but affectionate and concerned and curious all the way.”
Rebecca Sapp/WireImage
Like many Beatles fans, he hopes that his most famous project will enjoy a second coming in the wake of Jackson’s documentary. “The plan is that Apple is going to find a way to releaseLet It Beat some point afterGet Back. It could be limited theatrical, it could be streaming, it could be DVD. But their plan is to let it out again in light of Peter’s movie.”
Until then, it remains a glaring absence in the band’s storied canon.Let It Beis both a period piece and a self portrait. Most of all, it’s a monument to art under pressure. Despite the strife, Lindsay-Hogg made his movie. And the Beatles got back to where they once belonged.
source: people.com
