“Let It Be”, the documentary about the Beatles released just after the legendary group broke up in 1970, returned to screens on Wednesday, half a century later, in a remastered version on the Disney+ platform.
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Filmed in January 1969, the film directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s revealed the tensions between John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, which led them to take separate trajectories.
“George didn’t record a lot of songs because John and Paul were so brilliant and prolific,” Jonathan Clyde of Apple Corps, the Beatles’ company, told AFP.
“John had met Yoko (Ono) and was going his own way, Paul was doing what he wanted and Ringo had started making films,” he added at a screening of the film in London.
Restored from the original 16mm negatives and remastered sound, this shows the “Fab Four” in rehearsal, in a recording session for the “Let It Be” album.
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The last part returns to their surprise 40-minute concert on the roof of their company in London.
The film covers a period when The Beatles were trying to rekindle the spirit that was theirs when they began performing at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and Hamburg.
It was especially colored by the separation of the group in April 1970, a month before the release of the film, to the point of becoming “a sort of afterword to the end of their career”.
“They never really liked ‘Let It Be’ because I think it was associated with all the problems,” Jonathan Clyde said after the screening Tuesday evening in London.
More than 50 years later, it can now be seen in a more objective light as a valuable testimony to the Beatles’ creative process.
“We all know they were geniuses, they created this incredible music year after year but in fact, they worked extremely hard at it,” said Jonathan Clyde.
