KUALA LUMPUR: After five decades of being locked in a vault, director Peter Jackson has edited 57 hours of footage into a documentary that shows The Beatles jamming, dancing, joking, experimenting with new songs and working through their differences.
"This is The Beatles as you've never seen them before. As humans like all of us," said Jackson in an interview with Reuters yesterday.
Shot over 22 days in 1969, the tapes offer a starkly different portrait of the Liverpool band in the months before their split.
Contrary to urban legends that the Fab Four could no longer bear to spend time together, New Zealand-born Jackson of Lord Of The Rings fame found that they were "still friends with deep respect for each other."
"Instead of shouting at each other, they remained professional, had a sense of humour and went all out to entertain fans," said Jackson.
The three-part documentary The Beatles: Get Back will be released on Disney+ on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The tapes were recorded when Sir Paul McCartney, the late John Lennon, the late George Harrison and Sir Ringo Starr met to write 14 songs, record a new album and arrange their first live performance in three years.
That concert on the rooftop of the Apple Corps headquarters in central London was also their last.
The tapes were originally filmed for a documentary, Let It Be by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. It was released on May 1970 shortly after McCartney left the band.
Jackson worked with the agreement of surviving Beatles McCartney and Starr, the widow of Harrison Olivia, and Lennon's son Sean.
None of them asked for edits despite being nervous about the documentary's reception.
"Paul and Ringo said it was quite stressful to watch. They're aware that we're seeing The Beatles in an intimate, raw way," he said.
A staunch Beatles fan, Jackson said that the band remained popular because of the range and quality of their music.
"You can't imagine that the song Yesterday and Revolution No. 9 came from the same band. If you played it to people that don't know in a million years they wouldn't think it was the same band," said Jackson.