Sir Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back | Page 6 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I hope I’m wrong but It looks like we’re going to get a nicer version of the film where the narrative is best mates having a hard few days but really they love each other and it was great fun. It’s Apple’s biggest marketing point. 

Its all well and good saying the row was overblown but it doesn’t address all four Beatles saying it was an utterly miserable time for all of them (even in 1995) and George quitting (absent from the film and not down to a row between Paul and himself). 

There were great moments during January 1969, fun times left on the cutting room floor, but there was almost a lot of misery. Let’s not get sidetracked by the folk involved now coming out with the party line after saying different for 49 years. 

Not sure where to put this so it goes here as there was discussion about the argument between Paul and George (unless someone else cares enough to suggest somewhere else). 

Quoted from the ‘Anthology’ book, Paul talks about the reason for the row that was in the film  and then you get George with his side of it all; George’s irritation to Paul’s working method is brilliant to see as it burns off the pages. 

PAUL: If I made a suggestion and it was something that, say, George didn’t want to do, it could develop quite quickly into a mini-argument. In fact George walked out of the group. I’m not sure of the exact reason, but I think that they thought I was being too domineering.
It’s easy for someone like me, who likes to get stuff done, to come on too strong. I get excited and I get too keen
about something, and talk too fast – ‘Oh, we could do that and we’d be there on Monday morning – Twickenham – we’ll do it – it’s great…’ And then it got a bit difficult. I would say, ‘It would be great if we could film The Beatles working. It would be fabulous.’ And they’d be like, ‘Well, are you sure you want to do it that way?’ It was getting a very lukewarm reception – and I didn’t quite realise how I was.
Looking back at the film now, I can see it could be easily construed as someone coming on a bit too heavy; particularly as I was just a member of the band and not a producer or director. For my part it was just enthusiasm, and I’d sit and talk with the director. But I think it led to a couple of barneys, and in one of them George said, ‘Right. I’m not having this!’ I think I was probably suggesting what he might play, which is always a tricky one in a band.
On ‘Hey Jude ‘, when we first sat down and I sang ‘Hey Jude …’, George went ‘nanu nanu’ on his guitar. I continued, ‘Don’t make it bad…’ and he replied ‘nanu nanu’. He was answering every line – and I said, ‘Whoa! Wait a minute now. I don’t think we want that. Maybe you’d come in with answering lines later. For now I think I should start it simply first.’ He was going, ‘Oh yeah, OK, fine, fine.’ But it was getting a bit like that. He wasn’t into what I was saying.
In a group it’s democratic and he didn’t have to listen to me, so I think he got pissed off with me coming on with ideas all the time. I think to his mind it was probably me trying to dominate. It wasn’t what I was trying to do – but that was how it seemed.
This, for me, was eventually what was going to break The Beatles up. I started to feel it wasn’t a good idea
to have ideas, whereas in the past I’d always done that in total innocence, even though I was maybe riding roughshod.
I did want to insist that there shouldn’t be an answering guitar phrase in ‘Hey Jude ‘ – and that was important to me – but of course if you tell a guitarist that, and he’s not as keen on the idea as you are, it looks as if you’re knocking him out of the picture. I think George felt that: it was like, ‘Since when are you going to tell me what to play? I’ in The Beatles too.’ So I can see his point of view.
But it burned me, and I then couldn’t come up with ideas freely, so I started to have to think twice about anything I’d say – ‘Wait a minute, is this going to be seen to be pushy?’ – whereas in the past it had just been a case of, ‘Well, the hell, this would be a good idea. Let’s do this song called “Yesterday “. It’ll be all right.’

 

GEORGE: Personally I’d found that for the last couple of albums – probably since we stopped touring – the freedom to be able to play as a musician was being curtailed, mainly by Paul. There used to be situation where we’d go in (as we did when we were kids), pick up our guitars, all learn the tune and chords and start talking about arrangements.
But there came a time, possibly around the time of Sgt Pepper (which was maybe why I didn’t enjoy that so much), where Paul had fixed an idea in his brain as to how to record one of his songs. He wasn’t open to anybody else’s suggestions. John was always much more open when it came to how to record one of his songs.
With Paul, it was taken to the most ridiculous situations, where I’d open my guitar case and go to get my guitar out and he’d say, ‘No, no we’re not doing that yet. We’re gonna do a piano track with Ringo, and then we’ll do that later.’ It got so there was very little to do, other than sit round and hear him going, ‘Fixing A Hole …’ with Ringo keeping the time. Then he’d overdub the bass and whatever else.
It became stifling, so that although this new album was supposed to break away from that type of recording (we were going back to playing live) it was still very much that kind of situation where he already had in his mind what he
wanted. Paul wanted nobody to play on his songs until he decided how it should go. For me it was like: ‘What am I doing here? This is painful!’
Then superimposed on top of that was Yoko, and there were negative vibes at that time. John and Yoko were out on a limb. I don’t think he wanted much to be hanging out with us, and I think Yoko was pushing him out of the band, inasmuch as she didn’t want him hanging out with us.
IT’S IMPORTANT TO STATE THAT A LOT OF WATER HAS GONE UNDER THE BRIDGE AND THAT, AS WE TALK NOW, EVERYBODY’S GOOD FRIENDS AND WE HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE PAST. BUT TALKING ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT THAT TIME, YOU CAN SEE IT WAS STRANGE.

Ron Nasty said

With the companion book already listed on Amazon with the title Get Back : The Beatles, I’m thinking there’s a good chance that’s also the title of Jackson’s film.

  

Makes sense. It’s a natural choice considering it is a completely different film to ‘Let It Be ‘ so any similar name would only draw instant comparisons (tho that is almost inevitable regardless). 

sir walter raleigh said
I like the title as “Get Back ” is a common shorthand for the recording of those 1969 rehearsals. A good opener would be the Rooftop closer. 

  

If going with that idea, I’d go with the rooftop opener with them coming out on to the roof as that was one of the points of the whole project. There is so much footage to go with. As long as it’s not Martin Freeman or some celeb talking about the Beatles I’ll be happy; ‘EDAW’ was such a let down on reflection with all those celebs appearing for little reason – except when discussing the Beatles stance on crowd discrimination.