Tom Dunne: Let It Be film a reminder of how great The Beatles really were
The Beatles: A scene from Let It Be, now streaming on Disney+. Picture: Ethan A Russell
Context. It’s all about context. You can’t watch the Beatles 1970s film Let it Be (on Disney+ at last) the way audiences would have then. At this remove we can’t appreciate the horror, the dread it engendered in young Beatles fans. But trust me, the pain was real.
For a start, we’ve all seen too many brilliantly shot amateur WhatsApp videos. Without ever having studied film you’d still feel obliged to offer notes. “Better lighting,” you’d suggest, and maybe “provide more context, any context at all.” But it’s the emotional heft we really miss. For young fans in 1970, Let it Be was the moment they realised that The Beatles really were over. It was a new decade and one in which it was obvious, that The Beatles no longer wanted to hold anybody’s hand.
It was akin to spying on mammy and daddy arguing from behind the upstairs banister. The world beneath your feet was shifting. Change was coming. Everything you’d known as solid and permanent and re-assuring, was slipping away.
The 1970s, from the get-go, seemed darker, more adult, more complicated and Abbey Road, the real ‘last’ album, seemed to hint of such change. “Once there was a way to get back home,” sang Paul, but not anymore, it seemed.
Michael Lyndsay-Hogg’s Let It Be was unloved by fans, band, and critics alike. It wasn’t so much panned as banished. Sent to live in the upstairs attic, unloved and unwanted until Peter Jackson re-discovered it.
Peter Jackson’s treatment of the footage for the Get Back series remains one of the miracles of covid. It arrived at a dark moment, a lockdown without end. It was loved from the moment it showed The Beatles in stunning colour, laughing, and joking and being magnificent.
Paul said it helped him forgive himself, realising as he watched it, that, “we were just young, goofing around.” And so, we watch this re-issued Let it Be, knowing all that. We know that there was still lots of love and devilment in that band, further wild oats to be sown and other projects to be followed. We know now, there was too much talent for one band to hold. An explosion was inevitable.
We also know what happens next. That George’s songs, somewhat ignored in January 1969, will become some of the most popular of The Beatles canon and that he will become the most successful solo Beatle in 1971. We know Paul will do Wings, reconquer America and find true love with Linda.
We know John will produce Imagine and with Yoko become one part of one of the most iconic couples of the 20th century. And Ringo will have solo success, voice Thomas the Tank Engine and marry a Bond girl.
That’s a lot to have it your head as you watch Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s film in 2024. It’s like settling in to watch old family movies with your divorced parents. Things are good now, but should we risk mentioning the war?
Even though this new version has benefitted from the Jackson magic – colour and sound unrecognisable from the original - the first 40 minutes are a bit jarring. The lack of context will have you shouting at the screen. But after that, it settles.
The scenes were Macca sits and plays songs like ‘Let it Be’ and ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ are all presented together. They are stunning, although you’d miss the gentle interplay with Mal Evans from the Jackson version. But in Let it Be, then as now, all roads are leading to the rooftop concert.
All possible issues with Lindsay-Hogg’s direction end at that point. If he had done nothing else but film that performance, it would be worth the price of admission alone. It is a towering piece of work.
The Beatles are amazing, Paul and John in particular. They eye each other as they perform with a friendliness, an appreciation and a respect that is heart-warming. That each man is facing the only other writer on the planet that could equal him is obvious for all to see. Thank God, someone filmed it.
But it is the placing of that performance into the heart of 1960s lunchtime London that is genius. Men in bowler hats frown, girls giggle, taxi drivers struggle to find the right words. There is something repressed and restrictive on those streets that is unbelievably at odds with the world on that roof.
Let it Be is, like all Beatles things, even more interesting now.
