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Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.ĭeep Dives Into the Beatles with "Everything Fab Four": Like us diehards, he's hoping against hope that the Beatles haven't already played their best hand, that they've got a few more winning cards up their sleeve. No, Michael Lindsay-Hogg isn't some insufferable arch villain dead-set on needling us into oblivion. Is this really their swan song? Are the Beatles donesville? At one point after George Harrison briefly quits the band, Lindsay-Hogg quips that he too might leave, although he doubts that anyone would truly care. Rather, he acts as a stand-in for us Beatles fans, glibly wondering what direction the story might take - will they perform their much ballyhooed concert in the desert or on a ship at sea? Like us, he seems desperate to know where the Beatles are heading. For me, he never comes off as "annoying." And while he may be pompous, at times, it has nothing to do with his fancy lineage. RELATED: The Beatles' "Abbey Road" at 50, remixedĪs for me, I hold no ill will towards Lindsay-Hogg. As he is lifted atop the building, Lindsay-Hogg doesn't even break character, his ever-present stogie clutched tightly between his teeth. At one point, he is hoisted up to the famous rooftop where the story will climax with a lunchtime concert for the ages. As "Get Back" demonstrates, he's absolutely game for anything that might move his clumsy, stumbling documentary along. With Jackson's docuseries, fans have found great humor in poking fun at the often obsequious and self-deprecating Lindsay-Hogg. Even the most callous Beatles aficionados couldn't help shedding a tear as Lindsay-Hogg's narrative imagined a passion-filled reconnection between the vaunted members of the twentieth century's most celebrated songwriting duo.
#Let it be the beatles year movie#
Love the Beatles? Listen to Ken's podcast " Everything Fab Four."Īnd Lindsay-Hogg would later direct "Two of Us," a kindhearted, highly speculative TV movie about Lennon and McCartney's last day together. By that time, he was fresh off the set of "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus," the ill-fated production that would lie dormant for nearly 30 years.
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Seasoned Beatles fans know that Lindsay-Hogg was already something of a Beatles insider by the time he settled into the "Get Back" production, having directed the promotional videos for "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" back in 1966, and helming the video shoot for "Hey Jude" and "Revolution" only a few months before undertaking the original Beatles doc at Twickenham Film Studios in January 1969.
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He may have even been the son of Orson Welles-a mystery that has plagued him throughout his life. Thanks to his mother, actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lindsay-Hogg was on intimate terms with such cultural stalwarts as William Randolph Hearst, Olivia de Havilland, Humphrey Bogart, and Henry Miller. Born into the family of an English baronet, young Lindsay-Hogg grew up among the small world of Hollywood royalty. RELATED: In 1969 the fifth Beatle was heroin: John Lennon's addiction took its toll on the bandĪs it happens, when it comes to Lindsay-Hogg the class derision isn't entirely out of place. Registering their disgust with Lindsay-Hogg's conspicuous appearances in the docuseries, viewers have lambasted the then-28-year-old director for being "annoying," a "spoiled prick" and, my favorite, "the upper-class twit of the year." At one point among the rancor, one commentator good-naturedly proclaimed that "it's official, Michael Lindsay-Hogg broke up the Beatles :D." Don't believe me? Mosey on over to the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, the longtime home of the most engaging Beatles conversations on the web. Would you believe that it was none of the above?Įnter Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the cigar-chomping director of " Let It Be," the 1970 film that had the misfortune of being released in the days after McCartney announced the Beatles' demise to a crestfallen world.įor consumers of the "Get Back" series, Lindsay-Hogg has earned nearly wall-to-wall disdain. Was it Yoko Ono, daring to sit stoically beside her man John Lennon in the Fab Four Boys Club? Or Paul McCartney, reprising his familiar Bossypants role as he attempted to rally his fellow Beatles into action? Or even Allen Klein, the notorious New York City businessman cum thug who would plunge their managerial world into new levels of disarray? And for many viewers, the docuseries even produced a new supervillain for us to collectively disparage. Since last week, the Internet has been obsessed with " The Beatles: Get Back," Peter Jackson's three-part documentary on Disney+ about the Beatles' January 1969 struggle to cobble together new material for a return to the stage.