Do you think it’s helped them, as well as you as a filmmaker, that so much time has passed?
It’s been 50 years since the first film came out. But he and fellow surviving member Ringo Starr gave you their blessings to make this film, as did Lennon’s widow Ono and Harrison’s widow Olivia.
You’ve said that McCartney was nervous to meet you when he learned you were working on Get Back. Whitney Friedlander for Rotten Tomatoes: The Beatles themselves always came across as uncomfortable about what Let It Be depicted. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Jackson spoke in more detail about the process of creating his miniseries.
The Beatles are in a particular category - which is quite rare - where they are a famous band with famous singers or recording artists who write their own material.” Jackson added that “once you love the music, that naturally leads to an interest in who were the guys that actually created this music. For one reason only, really: because I love the songs, love the music. “It’s not the Beatles I find interesting, to some degree it’s the music,” Jackson told Rotten Tomatoes of his decision to take on a project that is going to be met with as much scrutiny as the original film. Others are more serious, such as when a broken down George Harrison comes into the studio after staying up late to write “Old Brown Shoe” - or when he quits the band. Some of Jackson’s miniseries is lighthearted and fun, with McCartney and Lennon do-si-doing around a cramped recording space or a young Heather McCartney, McCartney’s adopted daughter, spinning around and singing with the band. That film was meant to be a companion piece to the band’s similarly titled twelfth studio album, but fans considered it proof of (and causes for) the group’s impending breakup.Īlthough Lindsay-Hogg’s film is largely taken out of circulation and exists on bootlegs, the footage that ended up in it - as well as the extra pieces he and his crew captured - have been remastered and re-edited by Jackson and his staff to create a new, perhaps definitive narrative of what happened during those recording sessions and the subsequent infamous rooftop concert when the band gathered with musician Billy Preston to play their last show together. The miniseries, which premieres its first episode November 25 on Disney+ with the other two subsequently hitting the streamer on the 26th and 27th, respectively, is based on the cinéma vérité-style footage that documentarian Michael Lindsay-Hogg captured while making Let It Be. In The Beatles: Get Back, director Peter Jackson’s three-part, six-hour documentary surrounding some of the Fab Four’s final days, some of these myths will be disrupted. The band’s breakup is all Yoko Ono’s fault. “Man in the Mirror” also received a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year, but lost to Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.There are certain stories about the rock band The Beatles that pop culture has cemented as fact. The track became the fourth consecutive single from the pop star’s hit 1987 album Badto top the Billboard Hot 100, holding the Number One spot for two weeks. Jackson released “Man in the Mirror” in January 1988. SM also unveiled a new duet version of “Man in the Mirror” that features Garrett and K-pop star BoA sharing vocal duties over a pristine arrangement from McKinley that builds to a chilling, gospel-tinged finale. YouTube is hosting the concert with Korean music label SM, and the show will available on SM’s YouTube channel. The show will feature reinterpretations of “Man in the Mirror” from several artists, including the song’s co-writer Siedah Garrett (who also provided background vocals on the original) and the Myron McKinley jazz trio. Quincy Jones will appear at a special concert celebrating the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson‘s hit song, “Man in the Mirror,” set to stream live on YouTube January 19th at 7 p.m.