Three years after he blew Fab Four fans’ minds with his The Beatles: Get Back series, director Peter Jackson is dipping back into his Beatle bag on May 8 with the re-release of Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s legendary 1970 documentary Let It Be.
The film chronicling the final days of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr will be available for the first time in more than 50 years when it airs exclusively on Disney+ on May 8.
According to a release, the film recorded during the midst of the group’s breakup “now takes its rightful place in the band’s history. Once viewed through a darker lens, the film is now brought to light through its restoration and in the context of revelations brought forth” in Jackson’s Emmy-winning 2021 docuseries.
“Let It Be was ready to go in October/November 1969, but it didn’t come out until April 1970. One month before its release, The Beatles officially broke up. And so the people went to see Let It Be with sadness in their hearts, thinking, ‘I’ll never see The Beatles together again. I will never have that joy again,’” director Lindsay-Hogg said in a statement. “And it very much darkened the perception of the film. But, in fact, how often do you get to see artists of this stature working together to make what they hear in their heads into songs. And then you get to the roof and you see their excitement, camaraderie and sheer joy in playing together again as a group and know, as we do now, that it was the final time, and we view it with full understanding of who they were and still are and a little poignancy. I was knocked out by what Peter was able to do with Get Back, using all the footage I’d shot 50 years previously.”
In fact, the restored Let It Be features footage that appeared Get Back, taking viewers into the studio and onto the Apple Corps London rooftop in Jan. 1969 for what would be the quartet’s final live performance. It also features the band in the studio writing and recording their Let It Be album. In the wake of the rapturous appreciation for Jackson’s series, and with Lindsay-Hogg’s support, Apple Corps asked Jackson’s Park Road Post Production team to restore Let It Be from the original 16mm negative, a process that also included the remastering of the film’s sound using the same MAL de-mix technology that was employed on Get Back.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that Michael’s movie, Let It Be, has been restored and is finally being re-released after being unavailable for decades,” said Jackson in a statement. “I was so lucky to have access to Michael’s outtakes for Get Back, and I’ve always thought that Let It Be is needed to complete the Get Back story. Over three parts, we showed Michael and The Beatles filming a groundbreaking new documentary, and Let It Be is that documentary – the movie they released in 1970. 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 Lindsay-Hogg 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.”
On Monday, prior to the announcement — and six months after the Fabs dropped what was billed as their final song, the melancholy “Now and Then” — the Beatles site teased “There will be an answer,” a lyric from 1970’s “Let It Be.” The post was accompanied by four blank frames positioned to resemble the Let It Be album artwork, as well as what seemed like a cryptic clue, “At last…” and the Disney+ and Apple Corps logos.
Though Let It Be premiered in movie theaters in 1970 and was released on home video formats in the early 1980s, it has never been officially issued on DVD, blu-ray or streaming.
