I watched The Beatles: Get Back this weekend. I can't say enough good stuff about it. It's a 3-part 7+ hour documentary by Peter Jackson of LOTR fame, and so well done. It's just high quality footage of the Beatles and their inner circle during a month of writing, rehearsing, and recording what would become the Let It Be album and the Rooftop Concert. You get a great view into their relationships with each other, how they worked together, how a song evolves, how an album gets recorded, and a much more realistic look at what they were like as individuals and as a group than anything I've ever seen before.
I was under the impression that by this point, they were dysfunctional and angry at each other and unable to work together. Far from it. George was frustrated with Paul to some extent for being too dismissive of his ideas and walked out on the band for a few days, but John & Paul were still clearly close and having a lot of fun together. Lennon comes across as much funnier and more lighthearted than expected and impressed me as a much better guitarist than I'd realized. It was very cool to watch several famous songs be born and develop from a rough idea into a masterpiece. You even hear the rough beginnings of Something and a couple of other songs that wouldn't appear until the next album, Abbey Road.
One thing that really struck me was how difficult all of this must be for McCartney to watch today. This isn't a staged bit of acting, and it's not some grainy black & white video of The Beatles waving to a crowd. This is high quality, in color, extended moments of Paul and John, George, Ringo, Paul's late wife Linda, and other friends sitting face to face working together, laughing, swapping jokes and stories, etc. It's watching Paul & John waste an inordinate amount of time just being silly and trying to make each other laugh or bounce ideas off each other. This is real life intimacy with your brother and best friend, and your late wife. This was very real and personal. Had to be emotionally tough on Paul to watch this and remember those moments and how much he misses those people.
Anyway, if you haven't watched it, it's absolutely outstanding and well worth the 7 1/2 hours. If you're a Beatles fan, it's priceless. If you're not, it's still well worth watching.
