Part of me wishes I could occasionally unearth a slightly more nuanced take on certain things that grab me. As it is though I just can’t do it and my take on Get Back is simply one more in a long line of unbridled avalanches of one eyed enthusiasm.
From its brief written preface, through the simplified early Liverpool/Hamburg/Beatlemania sketches and on to the documentary’s main course, I was wholly beguiled, completely mesmerised and lock, stock and barrel consumed by the opening few hours of this fly on the wall forensic Fab Four scrutiny that Peter Jackson has unveiled for us.
How much this degree of my enrapture stems from my almost lifelong Beatles devotion and how much is because the film is simply so good and thus so inevitably captivating and educational to anyone interested in popular music or the significant bits of its history is impossible to say. But, bloodyhell, this really was an incredible viewing experience. Two and a half hours seemed to pass in no time at all, leaving me thirsting for the next two instalments.
Each Beatle provided their own magic to enrich the brew served up. Genius was evident throughout.
Paul clearly the one driven to propel the project and putting his money where his mouth was with a host of embryos of classic compositions to come.
John, restrained for the most part but ready at any moment to impart his own shafts of genius.
George, sardonic and laid back with ever present ciggy, yet all the while nonetheless with an unsated desperation for his older brothers to appreciate his own undoubted songwriting genius and demonstrate to them that The Beatles’ creative genius was not simply restricted to ‘Two of Us’.
Ringo, meantime, seemingly bored as hell for most of the time with his mind elsewhere as he contemplated an impending budding film career yet all the while a reassuring Steady Eddie figure for the other three and, of course, an incredibly endowed provider of any magical drumbeat any of the others cared to request.
Oh my God. This is just so good. Cannot wait to immerse myself in Part two tonight.
