The Beatles' Documentary "Let It Be" Heads to Disney+ on May 8th

[JamesG]

The Beatles' Documentary "Let It Be" Heads to Disney+
by Ryan Schwartz
April 16, 2024


A restored version of the classic Beatles documentary Let It Be is headed to Disney+.

The streamer announced Tuesday that director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original 1970 film about The Beatles will drop on Wednesday, May 8. This is the first time the film has been made available in over 50 years.




Per Disney+, Let It Be contains footage not seen in 2021’s The Beatles: Get Back docuseries, “bringing viewers into the studio and onto Apple Corps’ London rooftop in January 1969 as The Beatles, joined by Billy Preston, write and record their Grammy Award-winning album Let It Be, with its Academy Award-winning title song, and perform live for the final time as a group.”

Peter Jackson, who oversaw the restoration of Lindsay-Hogg’s footage for Get Back, is also behind Let It Be, having restored the film from the original 16mm negative. Sound has also been remastered using the same MAL de-mix technology used for Get Back.




“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,’ and it very much darkened the perception of the film,” Lindsay-Hogg acknowledged in a statement Tuesday.

“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 the 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.”




Added Jackson: “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. 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.”

https://tvline.com/news/the-beatles-...us-1235201125/