I'm about halfway through watching the first of three parts of the Peter Jackson-produced Beatles documentary Get Back, now airing on the Disney Plus channel. In early January, 1969, they're a few days into rehearsing material at their makeshift studio for a new album (eventually becoming Let It Be) and a planned concert, place and time undetermined. After Paul and George have a brief, rough-but-polite exchange, the four meet up the next morning...except John is late. In the meantime, Paul, with George and Ringo backing him up, concocts the core elements of the future blockbuster hit song Get Back. Later on John shows up, gamely trying to participate on a positive level with the band but appearing confused and out of it...something was definitely going on with him. After some jamming, they sit around facing each other...along with the assistants...and Paul starts off on a lecture of sorts about how he doesn't want to be the leader of the band but seems to be forced into that role. In both this scene and in the previous day's exchange with George, I felt that Paul was acting a bit like a drama queen and treating others with a patronizing attitude...and why not: every reality show...and this one certainly qualifies for that designation...seems to have someone who acts out on the others like this. I just expected that John would have been the prima donna here...if Paul had just guarded his tongue and simply stuck with the incredible music he was producing, I think things would have gone a lot smoother in these sessions, as well most likely in the months to follow that culminated in John quitting the Beatles in September. The documentary is already very, very long, but still had to selectively edit the Beatle's weeks-long sessions, each of which lasted all day for days on end each week: very, very grueling as I have said before. I felt that George came into the studio with a great amount of enthusiasm and songs of his own to contribute, gradually becoming disillusioned about how he was being treated by both Paul and John. Just a couple of days later he would walk out of the band with the other three trying to coax him back into rejoining during the ensuing two weeks. As for the eventual final product, that Let It Be album, which was finally released in the summer of 1970 after McCartney had announced the Beatles' breakup, contained some very good songs like Get Back, The Two of Us, For You Blue, Across the Universe, The Long and Winding Road, and I've Got a Feeling (I never did care for the title song Let It Be)...pretty impressive coming from what I've seen and heard so far on this documentary movie. So the Beatles quarreled among themselves...but this had probably been going on throughout their existence. The idea of filming and recording their conflicts in January of 1969 may be informative and entertaining for us today in looking back on it all, but the rolling cameras themselves were active participants in shaping the individual bandmates' attitudes and behavior toward one another...
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