Among the fascinating characters hovering around The Beatles in Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back is Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the director charged with making a film out of the band’s rehearsals for 1970 album Let It Be.
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As circumstances constantly change, Lindsay-Hogg negotiates with members of the group to decide an ending for their film - his proposal: a concert in an ancient amphitheatre near Tripoli, north Africa. Lindsay-Hogg’s resulting film Let It Be - released just after the band’s breakup - has been the subject of disparaging comments from the Fab Four and was never given an official video or DVD release.
Sir Michael, who is now aged 81, told Kim Hill that he whittled down 56 hours of footage to 90 minutes over a nine-month period after it was shot in January 1969.
During this time The Beatles made another album and were still "intact' as a group, however, around October and November, Apple (The Beatles' recording company) began to implode, ostensibly over financial issues.
While the rancour seemed to be about money, other issues were bubbling underneath and none of The Beatles attended the premiere of Let It Be in London at the end of the year and in April 1970 they announced their breakup just weeks before the movie debuted in the US.
"So people regard it as the breakup movie. That this tragedy that they were only imagining in their dreams - the breakup of The Beatles - had actually occurred and we were seeing it now in Let It Be.
"But it wasn't true - that was a misapprehension but because it wasn't helped by The Beatles because they weren't sanctioning it, because they'd broken up and they were very upset and sad about that whole thing, it [the movie] got a kind of bad rap."
Lindsay-Hogg said Sir Peter Jackson sees the issue quite clearly and how it came to be viewed as a "bad Beatles movie" when that was a long way from the truth.
Although Ringo Starr has criticised Let It Be for being depressing, Sir Michael said he was dealing with young men full of testosterone and ambition while Sir Peter Jackson was working with the group's two surviving members (Paul McCartney and Starr) who are now 79 and 81 respectively.
He said back in 1969 when they were all discussing the Let It Be project one of his suggestions was to film a concert (The Beatles had stopped performing and touring three years earlier) in an amphitheatre in Libya because it was "what had been at the centre of the world".
Three members were supportive with John Lennon suggesting they all sail there - but George Harrison was not keen.
Since their teenage years he had been frustrated and resentful that Lennon and McCartney never took him seriously as a songwriter. With tensions simmering Lindsay-Hogg got audio of Harrison's intention to quit by inserting a bug into a flowerpot on a table when they were all having lunch.
"He was vaguely pissed off anyway and it led to him a couple of days later to leave the group."
Fifty years on Sir Peter Jackson has been able to separate the tracks which also included someone doodling on a guitar to make a realistic portrayal of Harrison's exit for his movie.
Harrison left for a week or so and then the other members persuaded him to return - at least temporarily.
His condition was that there be no concert or television extravaganza but instead some footage would be filmed in the Apple studio.
"What had started out as basically shooting a little documentary material of The Beatles rehearsing which no-one had ever seen before as a sort of padding for ... a great television special taking place at the centre of the world ...with torches flaming... turns into overnight pretty much to a documentary."
Ringo Starr, left, and Sir Paul McCartney at a music event in London in 2016. Photo: AFP
Sir Michael said he did not want the documentary to feature only rehearsals and it needed a conclusion so he came up with the idea of a concert on the roof.
The studio roof had to be strengthened because it wasn't strong enough to hold all the musical instruments, the group, and half a dozen cameramen and their gear.
The next day Ringo was unenthused because it was cold, George was opposed but Paul was keen, and then John spoke up saying "F... it, let's do it" and that was enough to get the idea over the line. It turned out to be their last ever concert together.
While Sir Michael did not expect The Beatles to split immediately after the concert, he could see that they no longer had the same unity.
Yoko Ono as a catalyst?
Asked if Lennon's partner Yoko Ono's constant presence helped cause their split, he likens her to "a bruise" for the other three, because of the "intrusive feeling" she sparked in them.
Many of the musicians of the time were the children of people who emerged from World War II.
Where they came from in the north of England, a woman's place was confined to looking after children, making meals and "suffering in silence".
"The wife didn't come to work - it's as simple as that."
The other Beatles realised John and Yoko were inseparable and "they were stuck because it wasn't going to change".
Yoko Ono and John Lennon a visit to North Jutland in 1970. Photo: AFP
McCartney's mother died when he was just 12, while Lennon lost his mother when he was 16, and Yoko who was seven years older filled the role of both partner and organiser of his life, Sir Michael believes.
"I think it affected John ... so Yoko became - as well as his companion - she became sort of like his mother too because she would protect him."
Sir Michael agreed that Lennon was on heroin at the time, often supplied by Keith Richards' drug pusher, Spanish Tony.
Throughout his life McCartney has always been very solid and self-sufficient whereas Lennon was "a more fragile being".
"He [Lennon] was damaged in a way that Paul wasn't... when Yoko turned up he needed her."
