Hopefully the complete versions of their takes on the songs are available for a future release. I’m recalling several music docs (except for their names right now) which also had a lot of song snippets in the main feature, but for the DVD extras you could hear the complete songs. Fingers crossed!
I think one has to allow for how fragmented those sessions actually were: how few songs, especially the oldies, made it past a couple of lines, a spin, a busk, before being dropped. They're bits of memory flying around their heads all the time in this musical swirl we can't even see. Bored with themselves and each other, they flip off into "Twenty Flight Rock" or "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" or "Hitch Hike," the perfect record that someone else handed to them 5 or 10 years before--already made, a gift, no process to worry about, no bleeding fingers or aggravation or failure--and they use a snatch of it to get their minds back on their job, which at this point is almost nothing but sweat and work and aggravation.
But I felt a lot of this same way about Scorsese's No Direction Home, in which almost nothing was allowed to play through. And then we got to the "Judas" moment, and we were on the verge of SEEING history, not just hearing it, aaaaaand ... he cut to black and credits. I'm still spitting about that.
I think Yoko is one of the great figures in 20th-century aesthetics. "Get Back/Let It Be is my least favorite Beatles album, but still, it's fascinating to see footage of a band working together. It didn't have to be The Beatles to make it interesting. It could be any four or five individuals working toward a projected goal.
I see what you’re saying, Greil, but the film is way too long as is and, if anything, it needed more -- not less -- trimming. Peter Jackson had no choice but to cut it to a manageable size and I disagree that he failed in his effort. Indeed, I was mesmerized by most of it -- seeing Ringo as a stolid contributor; seeing John as a selfish and uncommitted elfin jester; seeing George blown off by Paul and John and rightfully pissed; seeing Paul playing the role of modern corporate project manager. I’m grateful to have witnessed all of this! And I was moved, too, particularly by the moments when we saw epic songs -- Get Back, Let It Be -- emerge from nothing to something. It felt like such a gift to watch the art spring to life, on par with watching Beethoven compose or Van Gogh paint that, at times, I literally wept . Finally, the movie does a better job than any other film I’ve seen at capturing the small-group creative process and, while I understand your points, I won’t call the movie a failure. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I think this is great, Greil. While I was fascinated by all of it, you get to the heart of what's missing, the whole time. What does work for me the best, what kept me so engaged, were all the little flickers that, yes, suggest something more that's hit the floor.
You've got me thinking about Truffaut writing about the fascism of montage, not that I entirely agree with that, but it speaks to my sensibility. This is insidiously that kind of an issue because it gives you the illusion it's not looking away just as it repeatedly does.
Isn't this the age of the Cloud, upon which all the Lindsay-Hogg footage could reside so people who so chose could experience it all?
"Slim Harpo's 'High Heel Sneakers'"...? You sent me hunting with delight for what I anticipated would be an original version (the first I heard as a piano lesson-suffering kid was Jerry Lee Lewis's, probably on "Shindig"), but I couldn't even find evidence Harpo covered it, sigh. https://www.wirz.de/music/harpo.htm
Hopefully the complete versions of their takes on the songs are available for a future release. I’m recalling several music docs (except for their names right now) which also had a lot of song snippets in the main feature, but for the DVD extras you could hear the complete songs. Fingers crossed!
I think one has to allow for how fragmented those sessions actually were: how few songs, especially the oldies, made it past a couple of lines, a spin, a busk, before being dropped. They're bits of memory flying around their heads all the time in this musical swirl we can't even see. Bored with themselves and each other, they flip off into "Twenty Flight Rock" or "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" or "Hitch Hike," the perfect record that someone else handed to them 5 or 10 years before--already made, a gift, no process to worry about, no bleeding fingers or aggravation or failure--and they use a snatch of it to get their minds back on their job, which at this point is almost nothing but sweat and work and aggravation.
But I felt a lot of this same way about Scorsese's No Direction Home, in which almost nothing was allowed to play through. And then we got to the "Judas" moment, and we were on the verge of SEEING history, not just hearing it, aaaaaand ... he cut to black and credits. I'm still spitting about that.
I think Yoko is one of the great figures in 20th-century aesthetics. "Get Back/Let It Be is my least favorite Beatles album, but still, it's fascinating to see footage of a band working together. It didn't have to be The Beatles to make it interesting. It could be any four or five individuals working toward a projected goal.
I’d trade at least 3 run-throughs of “Don’t Let Me Down” for an extra flight or two of 20 Flight Rock.
“Forget it, Greil. It’s Beatletown. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
I see what you’re saying, Greil, but the film is way too long as is and, if anything, it needed more -- not less -- trimming. Peter Jackson had no choice but to cut it to a manageable size and I disagree that he failed in his effort. Indeed, I was mesmerized by most of it -- seeing Ringo as a stolid contributor; seeing John as a selfish and uncommitted elfin jester; seeing George blown off by Paul and John and rightfully pissed; seeing Paul playing the role of modern corporate project manager. I’m grateful to have witnessed all of this! And I was moved, too, particularly by the moments when we saw epic songs -- Get Back, Let It Be -- emerge from nothing to something. It felt like such a gift to watch the art spring to life, on par with watching Beethoven compose or Van Gogh paint that, at times, I literally wept . Finally, the movie does a better job than any other film I’ve seen at capturing the small-group creative process and, while I understand your points, I won’t call the movie a failure. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I think this is great, Greil. While I was fascinated by all of it, you get to the heart of what's missing, the whole time. What does work for me the best, what kept me so engaged, were all the little flickers that, yes, suggest something more that's hit the floor.
You've got me thinking about Truffaut writing about the fascism of montage, not that I entirely agree with that, but it speaks to my sensibility. This is insidiously that kind of an issue because it gives you the illusion it's not looking away just as it repeatedly does.
❤️❤️🔥
Isn't this the age of the Cloud, upon which all the Lindsay-Hogg footage could reside so people who so chose could experience it all?
"Slim Harpo's 'High Heel Sneakers'"...? You sent me hunting with delight for what I anticipated would be an original version (the first I heard as a piano lesson-suffering kid was Jerry Lee Lewis's, probably on "Shindig"), but I couldn't even find evidence Harpo covered it, sigh. https://www.wirz.de/music/harpo.htm