After being officially unavailable for more than 50 years, a restored film chronicling The Beatles’ final recording sessions has been released on streaming platforms. Available to stream here today, The Beatles: Let It Be captures the recording sessions of the Let It Be album and has been restored by Peter Jackson’s team using the same technology used in the Emmy-winning 2021 Beatles doc, Get Back.
After the success of the epic eight-hour docuseries, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are back in this candid new film first released 54 years ago. Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original documentary was first released in May 1970 amidst the band’s breakup and is now brought to light through its restoration and in the context of revelations seen in Jackson’s Get Back.
The film contains new footage that captures the recording sessions of the Let It Be album and The Fab Four’s impromptu final performance on Apple Corps’ London rooftop in January 1969. Following the release of Get Back and with Lindsay-Hogg’s full support, Apple Corps asked The Lord of the Rings director Jackson’s Park Road Post Production to dive into a meticulous restoration of the film from the original 16mm negative.
The Lord of the Rings director Jackson said Let It Be provides “a vital missing context” that completes “one epic story.” He said: “I was so lucky to have access to Michael’s outtakes for Get Back, and I’ve always thought Let It Be is needed to complete the Get Back story.
“I now think of it all as one epic story, finally completed after five decades. The two projects support and enhance each other: Let It Be is the climax of Get Back, while Get Back provides a vital missing context for Let It Be. Michael was unfailingly helpful and gracious while I made Get Back, and it’s only right that his original movie has the last word – looking and sounding far better than it did in 1970.”
Let It Be held its UK premiere on Tuesday (May 7) at London’s Curzon Mayfair, with a bevy of music stars in attendance, including Oasis guitarist and singer Gem Archer, singer and songwriter James Bay and songwriter and musician Gary Kemp. Following the screening, Edith Bowman hosted an on stage in-conversation with Jonathan Clyde – Apple Corps producer of Get Back – and journalist and author John Harris.
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