“Maybe we’ll go on rehearsing forever,” says George Harrison, 252 minutes into the proceedings. This much proof, though? “Get Back” offers hours upon hours of rehearsal footage and all the rudderless noodling, joking, bickering, dithering and guitar tuning that goes with it - but try not to zone out because, look, they just figured out how to play “Don’t Let Me Down.” Enduring this whole thing is not unlike hearing some of the greatest songs ever written come together on the sales floor of a Guitar Center. It’s nice to have proof that the Beatles didn’t go out like that. Countless bands have marked their respective declines in tears, fists or worse. Throughout the 22-day process, various deadlines get blown, but the songs eventually get written, and with the refreshing presence of guest keyboardist Billy Preston, the Beatles find a way to run out of gas with smiles on their faces. The footage - 60 hours of film originally shot by Michael Lindsay-Hogg that Jackson has edited down to eight - was gathered back in January 1969 as the Beatles aimed to write and record a new album in a tight two weeks, then unveil it in a grand televised concert that was eventually downsized to a nontelevised romp on a London rooftop that would famously end up being their last public performance. ![]() “Get Back” is interesting, irritating, sweet, stultifying, illuminating, punishing, satisfying, totally life-sucking, ultimately unnecessary and still pretty cool. Which is why so many people chose to spend nearly eight hours of their wild and precious lives watching “The Beatles: Get Back” over the recent holiday weekend, a three-part documentary series on Disney Plus directed by Peter Jackson in which the Beatles literally come quite close to fulfilling the consensus expectation that they be everything to everyone. Rich people get richer, our imaginations get poorer and nothing is allowed to end. No Hollywood franchise shall go un-rebooted, no vintage Beatles footage shall go unseen. So to make things easier on everybody, our current pop culture leans toward rejecting the idea of finality altogether. This band made profoundly beautiful music, and as a society and a species, we have a very hard time saying goodbye to the things we love. Hot takes are boring, so forgive me for serving up this sizzling fajita plate of an edict, but the Beatles are overrated. ![]() This image released by Disney+ shows, background from left, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, and foreground from left, Yoko Ono and John Lennon in a scene from the nearly 8-hour Peter Jackson-produced documentary “Get Back,” airing over three days starting Thanksgiving.
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