Get Back, Part II
Nov. 28th, 2021 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakPart I having ended on the cliffhanger (ahem) of George walking out, part II goes from the aftermath of that up to the decision to the idea to do the live concert on the rooftop of the Apple building. Again, scattered thoughts:
- the general mood shift in tone as soon as they move from the Twickenham Studios to the Apple studio in Savile Row is really discernable; no one says so on camera, but I remember reading in the books that among many other things, that gigantic film studio was freezingly cold (unsurprising, in January), and that wasn't a problem anymore in Savile Row, which you can also tell because no one wears their warmest sweaters and jackets anymore, but I think it's also because tiny recording studios are sort of home territory, even though they hadn't used this one before, newly installed as it was by Magic Alex
- and promptly unusable, as most of Alex' inventions. (Seriously, that guy gets my vote for most parasitic hanger-on in the Beatles circle every time and I'm glad he's not in this documentary (so far) except by photo, though I admit my dislike is mostly fueled by the stunt he pulled in the John/Cynthia divorce
- one big sign a freshly returned George does care about the group: he checks out the Alex-installed studio before anyone else goes there, realizes it's trash, sends an SOS to George Martin and GM plus various EMI folk come to the rescue by installing an actually working studio over the weekend in record time
- but going back to Twickenham when George is still gone: we get the Yoko conversation quoted in a great many newer biographies and on various transcripts of the audios, which is why it wasn't new to me, but I can see why a lot of non-Beatles-versed reviewers were amazed, since it goes against various clichés. It's worth adding the caveat here that everyone knows they're being filmed and recorded. They don't always - later in part II we get an audio only conversation between John and Paul which they weren't aware was being recorded, due to Michael Lindsay-Hogg having planted micros in a flower pot standing in the Twickenham canteen - , but generally speaking, as emotioally raw as this entire documentary feels, it's worth remembering now and then, and not just when John is deliberately mugging and cutting grimaces for the camera, that everyone is aware of the observers. All this being said, it is worth pointing out that after an opening where Linda mentions that John didn't talk to George directly during the ill fated and unrecorded weekend attempt to talk George into returning, he let Yoko speak for him, and Michael asks Paul whether he and John worked closer together before Yoko came on the scene, we get various statements from Mr. McCartney which do not sound like the seething jealous rage of fanon, to wit,
a) He tells Michael that he and John used to work closer together when they were on tour together, because that essentially meant living together 24/7, and with the constant physical proximity comes not just working opportunity but emotional closeness; once they didn't do that anymore, a bit of the emotional closeness also was gone, nothing to do with Yoko
b) "They (John and Yoko) just want to be together, and it's not an obstacle unless we try to surmount it", and also, "It's just John being John" and John always goes over the top with new passions
c) It would be a huge mistake to make John choose between Yoko and the Beatles, because it's going to be Yoko every time.
- a word about Yoko in general, and the way Peter Jackson uses the footage showing her vs how it was used in Lindsay-Hogg's movie Let it Be: in either case, Yoko only rarely speaks - a very few times in the background and you usually can't understand what she's saying, as in the conversation with Linda in part 1, but mostly she's reading, knitting or later doing calligraphy to occupy herself, she's not intruding in the production process and by no means the only non Beatles, non-technical person there (other people dropping in and out: some Indian friends of George's, Linda, Maureen, and near the end of part II for the first time Pattie Harrison, Peter Sellers, and also near the end of part II Robert Fraser, joyfully greeted by Paul in song while playing Let it Be); the two times Jackson shows Yoko doing her freak-out screaming on the mike, his film presents it as coming in a period where no body is working anyway, and he also shows Paul, John and Ringo backing her up musically and appearing to enjoy that the way they enjoy fooling around with the instruments between working in general (this said, I do think it sounds awful, but then I'm not a fan of John Cage, either); in short, she's there, but with everyone else, not as this unexplained alien presence she is in the earlier movie (that sense hails from the fact Lindsay-Hogg did not show anyone other than the group and Yoko, plus occasionally Linda and later Heather, whereas Jackson shows the camera crew, Linday-Hogg himself, all the other visitors etc. in addition to Yoko.
- Part II in general is the Lennon/McCartney episode of the documentary (so far), starting with the tail end of the Twickenham era when Mal, who has tried to reach an absent in the studio John a few times in vain, finally comes to tell Paul "John wants to talk to you", Paul wanders off camera to the phone and returns a few minutes later to say John is coming in after all; one big difference in the way the Let it Be and Get Back films are presenting their footage in general is that Let it Be, put together shortly after the event, gives the impression of John entirely disconnected from the rest of the group and off in his own space with Yoko, while Get Back makes a point of literally showing him in the same space with everyone else, which is especially noticeable once everyone is at the Savile Row studio, because John and Paul are usually sitting directly opposite each other and looking at each other while playing (no matter whether playing seriously or just riffing), and we also see John interacting with Ringo (and George, once he's back) and various of the EMI people; but whether it's the cutting or previously unused footage or both, I don't remember this much constant eye contact and sparking from ye older versions
- Jackson solves the problem of no visual footage of the pretty important secretly recorded lunch canteen conversation by showing various shots of a dining room, which allows you to focus on the voices; this is a conversation featuring John Lennon being emotionally insightful, which given that his pop culture image went from Saint John (after his murder) to Eternally Raging Jerk John (think the movie where a way too old Christopher Eccleston plays him) is a useful reminder he could be, as he analyzes the problem of George's resentment at the kid brother treatment having built up for years correctly (and btw, says "we", not "you", i.e. blames himself as well as Paul for it); I was familiar with the George relevant quotes from this lunch conversation but not of a bit from later on when John moves on to discuss his own problem with Paul's current position, and Paul replies "You've always been boss" - (John objects "Not always", Paul says "Yes, you were, and I was secondary boss, I guess")
- in addition to the crammed-but-cozy feeling in the Apple studio vs the big freeze of Twickenham, another immediately noticeable moodshift towards the positive comes when Billy Preston (whom the band knew since their Hamburg days) arrives to visit and stays to work with them at the album, and the way all four perk up some more and behave as if they'd gotten an adrenaline shot by his presence (both musical and personal), which includes playing a lot of the songs they used to in Hamburg really does feel like a fresh breeze (coming after the nth discussion as to whether or not to do a concert at the end of filming)
- I think it's a pity Michael L-H didn't interview either Yoko or Billy Preston back in the day, and am in two minds as to whether Peter Jackson should have used interviews from either from later years; on the one hand, it would have offered insight, otoh, it would have broken the way this documentary uses only the original footage and occasionally footage from previous years, but not later (so far), contributing to the sense of being in the room with the Beatles back then
- Ringo really does deserve some kind of "eternally chill human glue" award with the way he's there for the rest of the group
- Paul's "and then there were two" (about himself and Ringo, when neither George or John are there) has an additional poignancy these days, but even within the film comes out wistful and melancholic at the same time
- "Oh, Darling!" as an answer to "Don't Let Me Down": canon! (I'd forgotten whether or not we knew that already)
- speaking of things we knew: this review by Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland makes him sound like a bona fide shipper: What you see on screen between John and Paul, especially when they play, is a chemistry that crackles as fiercely as any sexual or romantic attraction. The connection between the two is so intimate, the shared glances full of such understanding, that when they play Two of Us, you realise that the love that song celebrates is theirs – even if they didn’t know it.
I'll put another 24 hours between this and the final part, though that one will contain the Rooftop concert. (BTW, I'm with Paul: this film - either version - really needs a final concert as an emotional release/pay-off, and the way his face goes from depressed (when the Primrose Hill concert idea falls through for good) to hopeful (when Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Glyn Johns spring the idea of doing it on the roof instead on him) is something to behold.
- the general mood shift in tone as soon as they move from the Twickenham Studios to the Apple studio in Savile Row is really discernable; no one says so on camera, but I remember reading in the books that among many other things, that gigantic film studio was freezingly cold (unsurprising, in January), and that wasn't a problem anymore in Savile Row, which you can also tell because no one wears their warmest sweaters and jackets anymore, but I think it's also because tiny recording studios are sort of home territory, even though they hadn't used this one before, newly installed as it was by Magic Alex
- and promptly unusable, as most of Alex' inventions. (Seriously, that guy gets my vote for most parasitic hanger-on in the Beatles circle every time and I'm glad he's not in this documentary (so far) except by photo, though I admit my dislike is mostly fueled by the stunt he pulled in the John/Cynthia divorce
- one big sign a freshly returned George does care about the group: he checks out the Alex-installed studio before anyone else goes there, realizes it's trash, sends an SOS to George Martin and GM plus various EMI folk come to the rescue by installing an actually working studio over the weekend in record time
- but going back to Twickenham when George is still gone: we get the Yoko conversation quoted in a great many newer biographies and on various transcripts of the audios, which is why it wasn't new to me, but I can see why a lot of non-Beatles-versed reviewers were amazed, since it goes against various clichés. It's worth adding the caveat here that everyone knows they're being filmed and recorded. They don't always - later in part II we get an audio only conversation between John and Paul which they weren't aware was being recorded, due to Michael Lindsay-Hogg having planted micros in a flower pot standing in the Twickenham canteen - , but generally speaking, as emotioally raw as this entire documentary feels, it's worth remembering now and then, and not just when John is deliberately mugging and cutting grimaces for the camera, that everyone is aware of the observers. All this being said, it is worth pointing out that after an opening where Linda mentions that John didn't talk to George directly during the ill fated and unrecorded weekend attempt to talk George into returning, he let Yoko speak for him, and Michael asks Paul whether he and John worked closer together before Yoko came on the scene, we get various statements from Mr. McCartney which do not sound like the seething jealous rage of fanon, to wit,
a) He tells Michael that he and John used to work closer together when they were on tour together, because that essentially meant living together 24/7, and with the constant physical proximity comes not just working opportunity but emotional closeness; once they didn't do that anymore, a bit of the emotional closeness also was gone, nothing to do with Yoko
b) "They (John and Yoko) just want to be together, and it's not an obstacle unless we try to surmount it", and also, "It's just John being John" and John always goes over the top with new passions
c) It would be a huge mistake to make John choose between Yoko and the Beatles, because it's going to be Yoko every time.
- a word about Yoko in general, and the way Peter Jackson uses the footage showing her vs how it was used in Lindsay-Hogg's movie Let it Be: in either case, Yoko only rarely speaks - a very few times in the background and you usually can't understand what she's saying, as in the conversation with Linda in part 1, but mostly she's reading, knitting or later doing calligraphy to occupy herself, she's not intruding in the production process and by no means the only non Beatles, non-technical person there (other people dropping in and out: some Indian friends of George's, Linda, Maureen, and near the end of part II for the first time Pattie Harrison, Peter Sellers, and also near the end of part II Robert Fraser, joyfully greeted by Paul in song while playing Let it Be); the two times Jackson shows Yoko doing her freak-out screaming on the mike, his film presents it as coming in a period where no body is working anyway, and he also shows Paul, John and Ringo backing her up musically and appearing to enjoy that the way they enjoy fooling around with the instruments between working in general (this said, I do think it sounds awful, but then I'm not a fan of John Cage, either); in short, she's there, but with everyone else, not as this unexplained alien presence she is in the earlier movie (that sense hails from the fact Lindsay-Hogg did not show anyone other than the group and Yoko, plus occasionally Linda and later Heather, whereas Jackson shows the camera crew, Linday-Hogg himself, all the other visitors etc. in addition to Yoko.
- Part II in general is the Lennon/McCartney episode of the documentary (so far), starting with the tail end of the Twickenham era when Mal, who has tried to reach an absent in the studio John a few times in vain, finally comes to tell Paul "John wants to talk to you", Paul wanders off camera to the phone and returns a few minutes later to say John is coming in after all; one big difference in the way the Let it Be and Get Back films are presenting their footage in general is that Let it Be, put together shortly after the event, gives the impression of John entirely disconnected from the rest of the group and off in his own space with Yoko, while Get Back makes a point of literally showing him in the same space with everyone else, which is especially noticeable once everyone is at the Savile Row studio, because John and Paul are usually sitting directly opposite each other and looking at each other while playing (no matter whether playing seriously or just riffing), and we also see John interacting with Ringo (and George, once he's back) and various of the EMI people; but whether it's the cutting or previously unused footage or both, I don't remember this much constant eye contact and sparking from ye older versions
- Jackson solves the problem of no visual footage of the pretty important secretly recorded lunch canteen conversation by showing various shots of a dining room, which allows you to focus on the voices; this is a conversation featuring John Lennon being emotionally insightful, which given that his pop culture image went from Saint John (after his murder) to Eternally Raging Jerk John (think the movie where a way too old Christopher Eccleston plays him) is a useful reminder he could be, as he analyzes the problem of George's resentment at the kid brother treatment having built up for years correctly (and btw, says "we", not "you", i.e. blames himself as well as Paul for it); I was familiar with the George relevant quotes from this lunch conversation but not of a bit from later on when John moves on to discuss his own problem with Paul's current position, and Paul replies "You've always been boss" - (John objects "Not always", Paul says "Yes, you were, and I was secondary boss, I guess")
- in addition to the crammed-but-cozy feeling in the Apple studio vs the big freeze of Twickenham, another immediately noticeable moodshift towards the positive comes when Billy Preston (whom the band knew since their Hamburg days) arrives to visit and stays to work with them at the album, and the way all four perk up some more and behave as if they'd gotten an adrenaline shot by his presence (both musical and personal), which includes playing a lot of the songs they used to in Hamburg really does feel like a fresh breeze (coming after the nth discussion as to whether or not to do a concert at the end of filming)
- I think it's a pity Michael L-H didn't interview either Yoko or Billy Preston back in the day, and am in two minds as to whether Peter Jackson should have used interviews from either from later years; on the one hand, it would have offered insight, otoh, it would have broken the way this documentary uses only the original footage and occasionally footage from previous years, but not later (so far), contributing to the sense of being in the room with the Beatles back then
- Ringo really does deserve some kind of "eternally chill human glue" award with the way he's there for the rest of the group
- Paul's "and then there were two" (about himself and Ringo, when neither George or John are there) has an additional poignancy these days, but even within the film comes out wistful and melancholic at the same time
- "Oh, Darling!" as an answer to "Don't Let Me Down": canon! (I'd forgotten whether or not we knew that already)
- speaking of things we knew: this review by Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland makes him sound like a bona fide shipper: What you see on screen between John and Paul, especially when they play, is a chemistry that crackles as fiercely as any sexual or romantic attraction. The connection between the two is so intimate, the shared glances full of such understanding, that when they play Two of Us, you realise that the love that song celebrates is theirs – even if they didn’t know it.
I'll put another 24 hours between this and the final part, though that one will contain the Rooftop concert. (BTW, I'm with Paul: this film - either version - really needs a final concert as an emotional release/pay-off, and the way his face goes from depressed (when the Primrose Hill concert idea falls through for good) to hopeful (when Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Glyn Johns spring the idea of doing it on the roof instead on him) is something to behold.
