Peter Jackson Denies His ‘Unflinching’ ‘Get Back’ Is a Whitewash
Peter Jackson, director of the upcoming documentary series The Beatles: Get Back, refuted the notion that his six-hour Disney+ project is a “whitewash,” glossing over band tensions and focusing on the lighter moments from the Let It Be sessions.
“Everyone sort of thinks it’s a ‘whitewash’ [because the Beatles authorized it],” the filmmaker told The New York Times, contrasting the series to Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original documentary, Let It Be. “But actually it’s almost the exact opposite. It shows everything that [he] could not show in 1970. It’s a very unflinching look at what goes on.”
As art of that perception likely comes from the involvement of Apple Corps, the multimedia corporation originally formed by the Beatles in 1968. At a 2020 industry event, company CEO Jeff Jones said the film would “attempt to bust the myth that the Let It Be were the final nail in the Beatles’ coffin.”
However, Jackson maintained that the surviving band members offered no directive. The Lord of the Rings director was allowed access to almost 60 hours of previously unseen footage, told only to restore the film and tell its complete story. “There’s no goodies in it, there’s no baddies,” Jackson said of the three-part series, the first installment of which debuts Nov. 25.
“There’s no villains, there’s no heroes. It’s just a human story. … You see these four great friends, great musicians, who just lock in and develop these songs, and you see it all onscreen.”
Meanwhile, Lindsay-Hogg recently told UCR that he hopes Apple Corps "will, in some form, rerelease Let It Be,” which he maintained is not a “breakup movie.”
“I don't know how yet — theatrically or if it will be streaming or some special edition, who knows,” he said of a possible release strategy. “But I'm happy because people have been wanting to see it for years. I've been [wanting] to get it out for years and years and years, but there were many internal issues about [whether] it wasn't going to come out. So I'm looking forward, at some point, to Let It Be being released again."