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Historiography and Documentary Techniques in Let It Be (1970) and The Beatles: Get Back (2021)

2023; Taylor & Francis; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10509208.2023.2236509

1543-5326

William Kummer,

Musicology and Musical Analysis

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Correction StatementThis article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.Additional informationNotes on contributorsWilliam KummerWilliam Kummer is currently in his third year of study in Wilfrid Laurier University’s PhD program in English and Film. He has co-chaired a conference on Posthumanism, Memory and Cinema, been on panels at MLA’s 2023 annual convention and NeMLA 2023, and presented at IABAA’S 2021 biennial conference. He has coauthored a chapter on life writing in the forthcoming Companion to Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (Wiley-Blackwell). His research interests include music, adaptation, life writing, and contemporary British and American literature and film.Notes1 The first 23 min of Let It Be (1970 Let It Be 1970. Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, United Artists. [Google Scholar]) take place in Twickenham Film Studios; the remaining 57 min take place in and around (and above) the Apple Building on Savile Row.2 Though McCartney notes that the band had already broken up 3 or 4 months earlier but had agreed not to announce it yet, McCartney published a questionnaire on 9 April 1970, prior to the release of his solo debut, McCartney (1970) (Doggett 2009 Doggett, Peter. 2009. You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles after the Breakup. New York: HarperCollins. [Google Scholar], 124–126; McCartney 1986 McCartney, Paul. 1986. “You Can’t Get It Right All the Time.” Interview by Kurt Loder, Rolling Stone vol. 482, September 11. Rpt. in Rolling Stone: Special Collectors Edition: Paul McCartney, pp. 58–67, 1 Jan. 2013. [Google Scholar], 62–63).3 It is worth considering the degree to which these aims may be somewhat at odds with each other: Jackson’s professed pre-existing fondness for the Beatles, suggesting a project that could potentially mythologize them in the process of countering prior impressions of the period, along with having a particular overall tone in mind, complicates already complicated notions of authenticity and documentary's relationship with it.4 The album, released several days before the film, has this telling description in Record World’s 16 May 1970 “Album Picks of the Week” write-up: “[it] shows every sign of being their biggest, with the movie as a sales aid” (Parnes et al. 1970 Parnes, Sid, Doug McLelland, Dave Finkle, John Kornblum, Frank Mitchell, Bob Moore Merlis, Del Shields, and Kal Rudman. 1970. “Album Picks of the Week.” Record World, 16 May. World Radio History. https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Record-World/70s/70/RW-1970-05-16.pdf [Google Scholar], 1).5 The Let It Be project shifted from a television special to a documentary film, and Stuart Miller notes, “the process of transferring the film from 16mm to 35mm left it looking grainy and dark, which further fed the bleak narrative of the time.”6 In an interview with NME, Damian Jones quotes McCartney as saying The Beatles: Get Back changed his perception—“there is proof in the footage.” McCartney continues, ““It’s easy, when the climate is going that way, to think that [I’m to blame for the Beatles breaking up]. But at the back of my mind there was this idea that it wasn’t like that. I just needed to see proof” (Jones 2021 Jones, Damian. 2021. “Paul McCartney Says ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ Documentary Changed His Perception of Their Split.” NME, November 15. https://www.nme.com/news/music/paul-mccartney-says-the-beatles-get-back-documentary-changed-his-perception-of-their-split-3095528 [Google Scholar]).7 Echoing McCartney’s sentiments in an interview for Ultimate Classic Rock with Gary Graff, Starr says, “‘We had ups and downs, but even around all that – which you’ll see with the Peter Jackson edit—we were having fun, which [Let It Be] never showed, joy and fooling around and shouting at each other’” (Graff 2021 Graff, Gary. 2021. “Ringo Starr Calls ‘Get Back’ Film a ‘Six-Hour Masterpiece.’” Ultimate ClassicRoc, September 23. https://ultimateclassicrock.com/ringo-starr-get-back-film/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral [Google Scholar]).8 White writes, “The events are made into a story by the suppression or subordination of certain of them and the highlighting of others, by characterization, motific repetition, variation of tone and point of view, alternative descriptive strategies, and the like -·· in short, all of the techniques that we would normally expect to find in the emplotment of a novel or a play” (223). As will be discussed, these strategies are eventually used to powerful effect in The Beatles: Get Back, but emplotment is not emphasized in Let It Be.9 For example, Rick writes in Variety, “It is McCartney, the baby-faced idol of the Sixties, now bearded, dark and striking looking, who will probably emerge strongest as a major individual talent of the Seventies as a composer and singer” (26).10 Though she does not address Let It Be, Wright points out a trend of films released in 1970 being coloured by the emotional aftermath of 1969. She writes, “The narratives, structures, and moods of Woodstock and Gimme Shelter are clearly informed by the reception of the Woodstock and Altamont concerts. Both films are concerned with representing an experience, but while the Woodstock experience was deemed positive, the undercurrent of negativity associated with Altamont and Hunter’s murder causes Gimme Shelter to come to function like a murder mystery—more than just a concert film” (72).11 Lindsay-Hogg directed this promotional film, though Jackson does not draw attention to that fact.12 Jessica Meyer’s “Sound and Silence in Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old” explores how Jackson uses innovative sound design to shape audience understanding.13 See the sequence in “Part 1: Days 1-7” from 29:33 to 30:10 for one of many instances.14 Nichols writes, “Jean-Luc Godard once claimed that cinema is truth twenty-four times a second: participatory documentary makes good on Godard’s claim” (185).