Peter Jackson, director of films like The Lord of The Rings trilogy, premiered his newest documentary, ‘The Beatles: Get Back – The Rooftop Concert’, this weekend in theaters across the UK and US.
One special screening featured a Q&A session with Jackson where he talked about how he’d received tons of footage from Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who’d directed the Beatles 1970 ‘Let It Be’ documentary, to produce ‘The Beatles: Get Back”.
During the Q&A Jackson admitted that he thinks he would’ve “lost it” on the Beatles if he had been the one filming with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in the 70s instead of Lindsay-Hogg.
“The poor guy was herding cats the whole time and I was just feeling so many times that I would have lost it!” Jackson said. “I mean as much as I love the Beatles, I would have raised my voice at them a couple of times and read them the riot act because they would have driven me crazy, and Michael’s just so calm.”
“I particularly enjoy seeing Michael twitch and squirm when things aren’t going quite his way; as a director I can sympathise with that and find it kind of funny,” he added. “Some of my favorite bits in the rushes and the outtakes were Michael’s stuff because I don’t play in a band – I can love the Beatles and watch the Beatles like anyone – but crucially the person I was really relating to was Michael.”
When recalling his favorite Lindsay-Hogg moment, Jackson said that it was “when somebody – Paul or Ringo or someone – asks how the filming’s going, and he says, ‘Well, if the film’s going to be about chain smokers, nose pickers and arse scratchers, then it’s going to be fantastic!’”
