Peter Jackson has extensively restored the 1970 documentary.
The Big Picture
- Long-lost 1970 Beatles documentary
Let It Be
hits streaming May 8 on Disney+, restored by Peter Jackson. -
Let It Be
shows recording of the titular album and final band concert – tense times captured on film. - Interest in the Beatles remains strong over 60 years later, with more projects on the horizon including Midas Man.
Good news, Beatlemaniacs – the long-lost 1970 documentary Let It Be will finally hit streaming next month. Peter Jackson, who used Let It Be’s extensive outtakes to create his own Beatles documentary, Get Back, in 2021, has had the footage restored by his Park Road Post Production team to make it seem more vital than ever. Variety reports that Jackson worked with Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the director of Let It Be, to meticulously restore Let It Be‘s footage. The resulting restoration will hit Disney+, which also released Get Back, on May 8.
This will be the first-ever digital release of the documentary, which was last released on VHS in the 1980s. While Get Back was an eight-hour epic depicting the last gasp of the biggest band of the 1960s, Let It Be is a more stripped-down version, presenting the story of the titular album’s recording in a tight 80 minutes. Said Jackson in a statement, “I’ve always thought that Let It Be is needed to complete the Get Back story”, and continues on to say, “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“. Says Lindsay-Hogg, “It looks now like it was intended to look in 1969 or 1970, although at my request, Peter did give it a more filmic look than Get Back, which had a slightly more modern and digital look.”
Why Was ‘Let It Be’ Locked Away For Forty Years?
The documentary chronicles the recording of the Beatles’ final album, Let It Be, and their final concert, the famous impromptu set on the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters in London. It was a famously fractious time for the band, who would break up shortly afterwards. The documentary captures some of the tensions between members of the band; in fact, George Harrison quit the group during filming, although he eventually returned. The film was released in 1970, but the Beatles were unhappy with how their fractures were portrayed on-screen, even after the most contentious parts of the film were removed at their request. Various attempts to re-release the film were made over the years; clips of it were remastered for the 1995 Beatles doc The Beatles Anthology, and a full remaster was originally planned to be released alongside Let It Be… Naked, a version of Let It Be that was remastered in 2007 to remove producer Phil Spector‘s heavy hand. However, the Beatles could not come to an agreement about its release until now.
Over sixty years after they released their debut album, interest in the Beatles remains strong. The next cinematic retelling of the band’s story is Midas Man, which will chronicle the short life of their original manager Brian Epstein and wrapped filming last year. Next on the docket is an ambitious four-movie project that will dramatize the life of all four Beatles.
Let It Be will be released on Disney+ on May 8. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
This article was originally published on collider.com