The filmed account of The Beatles' attempt to recapture their old group spirit by making a back-to-basics album, which instead drove them further apart.
A documentary showing both how The Beatles made music together, and how they split up. Hundreds of hours of raw footage was condensed into the final product. The rooftop performance ending the film remains a rock-n-roll archetype.—Ed Chen <[email protected]>
Filmed on-location at Apple and Twickenham Film Studios, The Beatles bang out songs and reminisce. Yoko Ono is a cloying presence as John Lennon's silent, somewhat useless appendage throughout the film's entirety. The final moments of film are the band's legendary lunchtime performance on the roof of Apple. It was the first time the band had played together in three years and would also be the last. Things go along quite nicely until the chief officer of a nearby bank calls in the cops and has the impromptu performance shut down. John closing the band's rooftop performance: "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and I hope we passed the audition."—alfiehitchie
Seemingly plot-less Let It Be appears as a rambling rag-tag collection of George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr getting together to rehearse material for a new album of songs. As a documentary, showing the artists develop little pieces of music in different ways with phrases of lyrics, piano, guitar and drums shows the indefinable process that culminates to form the Popular Song. As the process continues the overt personalities of the different artists become more prominent and the collaborative spirit that had seemed to be present earlier, dissolves and the character of each member begins to stand out. Paul seems intent on harnessing the talents of each of the members into a unified group to rehearse and find the magic that put the band on the top of the music charts, but the different members have strong independent ideas. Several songs are molded with Lennon and McCartney forging the way, and George toils away on the side with his songs, as Ringo sits in on songs and drums. The film culminates with the band chucking the idea of creating any new cutting edge tunes, and in a moment of public relations grandstanding carry their instruments up onto the roof of Apple Corps headquarters on Saville Row at lunch time on January 30, 1969 to perform, causing the Police to shut down their last public performance.
