Peter Jackson Takes Us into the Locked Beatles Vault

Ahead of his epic series Get Back, the New Zealand director Peter Jackson reveals the secrets of 60 hours of intimate, unseen footage of the Fab Four – and why it turns everything we know about their final days upside down, Andy Welch writes for The Guardian.

Jackson’s four-year project is now finished – “we finally completed it on Friday,” says a relieved-looking Jackson from his home in New Zealand – and the resulting series, The Beatles: Get Back, will be released on Disney+ from 25 November, Welch reports.

Taken at face value, it’s a unique insight into a band at work, restored to a modern, HD sheen. But, more than that, it’s a study of four of the most idolised and scrutinised individuals in the world in their prime. This is not just a music documentary, it’s a history book come to life.

“I just can’t believe it exists,” says Jackson, in the manner of a man still yet to come to terms with what he was allowed to do. “But then I can’t believe any of it – that the Beatles let Michael [Lindsay-Hogg] shoot all that footage, that it sat in a vault all this time…”

Original article by Andy Welch, The Guardian, November 20, 2021.