Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 'Let It Be' is coming!

[cliftdean74]

It would be great to get the interviews that Mark Lewisohn did with various players when Apple was considering a re-release years ago.

[harrylime]

I wonder how many don't realise that often things are filmed in a 4:3 aspect ratio with the deliberate intention for the final production to be cropped for the final release?

How is this relevant if we’re talking a tv-special that was only later made into a film because they didn’t know what else to do with it? Also the workprint/draft cut wasn’t cropped either.

[Choking Smoker]

I wonder how many don't realise that often things are filmed in a 4:3 aspect ratio with the deliberate intention for the final production to be cropped for the final release?

How is this relevant if we’re talking a tv-special that was only later made into a film because they didn’t know what else to do with it? Also the workprint/draft cut wasn’t cropped either.

I think the answer is that because they had used film (even if it wasn't 35mm) instead of video tape they had the option to change their minds and apparently they did and their artistic choice wasn't to release it in 4:3 ratio.

[Lord Reith]

It surely wasn't shot in safe 4:3 mode for widescreen because if you just matte the top and bottom with black bars then half of Paul's face disappears during LIB and TLAWR, and also in other close ups. The only way they could get it into widescreen was to crop each shot differently.

IMO it should absolutely be released in 4:3 aspect and disney can get knotted. It was meant to be a rock documentary for tv and should be presented that way. But no-one will listen, unless MLH himself insists on it.

[silvercup67]

I still don't get the excitement here. Peter Jackson made the project not only watchable, but more exciting. At 8 hours!
This sounds like having a window, breaking the glass, replacing the window with a clean new piece of glass, and then asking to see the broken glass again.

To my mind, Let It Be is the better film.

Yes, Let It Be is the better film. Many of us saw Let It Be in theaters in the 70’s, so we’re kind of fond of that. I’m guessing you didn’t since you have a negative view on it. Peter Jackson’s movie, to me, was an overlong documentary of outtakes OF a documentary. That documentary is Let It be. And that’s how Peter Jackson views it himself. The finished product this is all about is the movie Let it Be. It should stand on it’s own. And to many of us, it does. Also, Jackson avoided using footage that was already in Let It Be, so it's not like it will be duplicating much of Peter Jackson's work.

Actually I have had a store bought VHS copy for decades. And I saw the film for the first time in 1972.
The weakness of the plot of "Let it Be" is that it completely omits the most dramatic point of the entire project.....George Harrison quits and doesn't return until they move the project to Apple.

To me, releasing the edited version of "Get Back" that was shown to the Beatle families would be more interesting than a "cleaned up" Let It Be.
But people moaned that there was only 8 hours released of "Get Back" out of the 60 hours shot.....

[harrylime]

I think the answer is that because they had used film (even if it wasn't 35mm) instead of video tape they had the option to change their minds and apparently they did and their artistic choice wasn't to release it in 4:3 ratio.

They shot on 16mm because there wasn’t much budget, don’t forget they started at Twickenham because it was already booked for the Magic Christian and it thus was ‘for free’ so to say. And they only shot a few hours tops per day, often much less, hence why PJ had to use a bag of tricks to align at least some of the image with accompanying audio, but often had to resort to montages because there simply wasn’t much film to use. This was done on the cheap, even for shooting film, let alone how far out it would have been to record on video, certainly in ‘69.

And the choice to release as a widescreen movie was not artistically, Klein decided to do this and the widescreen format was chosen because else it wouldn’t run in regular theaters that didn’t show ‘Academy Ratio’ flicks anymore unless on special occasions (like the rerun of a classic).

[Derian the imp]

I can NOT wait to get a Blu Ray of this to FINALLY complete the collection!

IMHO the "Help!" blu is watchable.

I never said anything about it?

[Fun 4 None]

Assuming that Michael has final say I'd like to imagine it's 4:3 because the Furmanek remaster (seen on HMC) was 4:3 and the unreleased Smeaton remaster (seen in Living in the Material World and McCartney 321.) was also 4:3

[Rickenbacker325]

Assuming that Michael has final say I'd like to imagine it's 4:3 because the Furmanek remaster (seen on HMC) was 4:3 and the unreleased Smeaton remaster (seen in Living in the Material World and McCartney 321.) was also 4:3

That would surely be great

[cdgm]

To my mind, Let It Be is the better film.

Yes, Let It Be is the better film. Many of us saw Let It Be in theaters in the 70’s, so we’re kind of fond of that. I’m guessing you didn’t since you have a negative view on it. Peter Jackson’s movie, to me, was an overlong documentary of outtakes OF a documentary. That documentary is Let It be. And that’s how Peter Jackson views it himself. The finished product this is all about is the movie Let it Be. It should stand on it’s own. And to many of us, it does. Also, Jackson avoided using footage that was already in Let It Be, so it's not like it will be duplicating much of Peter Jackson's work.

Actually I have had a store bought VHS copy for decades. And I saw the film for the first time in 1972.
The weakness of the plot of "Let it Be" is that it completely omits the most dramatic point of the entire project.....George Harrison quits and doesn't return until they move the project to Apple.

To me, releasing the edited version of "Get Back" that was shown to the Beatle families would be more interesting than a "cleaned up" Let It Be.
But people moaned that there was only 8 hours released of "Get Back" out of the 60 hours shot.....

Watching it as a high 14 year old kid for a few weekends, I wasn't looking for a storyline or a plot. It's just the Beatles recording an album and playing on the rooftop. That's good enough for me. And the soundtrack played like a bootleg album, which again, was good enough for me. It doesn't give the whole story, but after seeing the Peter Jackson series, the original Let It Be shows that the best bits were used. For God's sake, Peter Jackson spent like 20 minutes on the counter melody that wasn't used in Don't Let Me Down. Two minutes of that would have gotten the point across. I don't know what he liked about that to keep it going forever.