Since its premiere on Disney Plus about a month and a half ago, The Beatles: Get Back has proven one of this season’s most popular binge-watches, as fans of the Fab Four have devoured the eight-plus hours of archival footage painstakingly restored and arranged by Peter Jackson. Those desperate for more are in luck, as one key piece of the three-part series will soon be seen as never before.
Get Back climaxes with The Beatles’ famed concert on the rooftop of their Apple Corps studios, a last hurrah before calling it quits as a group entity. The band’s official Twitter account announced today that this final performance is coming to cinemas as a special presentation in IMAX for audiences in the US and UK.
For one night only on 30 January, a 60-minute edit of the legendary show will play in a sizable number of cities. On that fateful day (which just so happens to have been 30 January, fifty-three years ago), The Beatles made it 42 minutes before the authorities showed up to feebly put the kibosh on the proceedings, by which point they’d already made history.
Their setlist consisted of choice cuts from their then-in-progress album Let It Be, including the much-rehearsed ‘Get Back’, ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’, and ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ It was an emotionally cathartic experience for a close-knit group on the verge of breaking apart, shedding the acrimony that had often clouded the recording process and remembering the simple pleasure of playing music with your friends.
An exclusive Q&A with Jackson will pad out the presentation’s run time, as he presumably fields inquiries about his polarizing decision to smooth out everybody’s faces until they look like Instagrammed versions of themselves. That, or we’ll find out what his favorite Beatles song is. There should be time for both.
Published 5 Jan 2022
By Elena Lazic
Peter Jackson unearths and re-edits footage of the Beatles’ last hurrah, with euphoric and exasperating results.
By Mark Allison
In 1967, the Fab Four embarked on an extravagant, experimental journey that would redefine what a promotional film could be.
A key ingredient is missing from this tribute to the Fab Four’s seminal pop-rock LP: the music.
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