Is 'Let it Be' DVD finally coming?

I've never thought the film showed them in a negative light. To me, it shows a band going through new material but in a jaded and lacklustre way until the payoff of the rooftop "concert". They have their bitchy moments but what band doesn't? My main beef with the film is on the technical side. Poor camera work, grainy film quality that suffers from being shot in 16mm and blown up to 35mm and very poor post-production/editing. Michael Lindsay-Hogg may well have been adept at making 2-3 minute promo clips but he didn't do a very good job on this 90 minute film.

 

When the DVD was first announced back in the early 2000s, one of the bonus materials was supposed to be a video compilation of the songs from the album (or was it Abbey Road songs, can't remember), maybe these clips were first made then?

 

I don't think there is anything overrated about the rooftop concert.
After years of not doing anything live and being practically unrehearsed (plus it being a cold January), they were actually incredibly tight and showed one last time that they were, as they started, a very good live band.

 

Ditto. Probably my least favorite Beatles album so I'm not especially dying it to see it anyway.

I was surprised to find out that Michael Lindsey Hogg was person Welles' son

 

I bought the Blu Ray.

 

I had a copy of a vhs tape I bought out of the classifieds in the newspaper back in the late 80's. I also snagged a copy of promos for their songs, I think it was called private reels. Anyway, it's funny that in thirty something years we have almost everything that we could've hoped for but still don't have LIB.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_gate

From the Let It Be clip:

 

I saw the film in the cinema when it came out and later on TV and that's how I remember it. Kind of dull and dreary. They all look tired and depressed and it reflected in the music that they put down (and abandoned).

 

Last I heard, Paul and Ringo were blocking its release, fearing that it would sully the band's reputation in the wake of all the positive hype and success of all the remastered CD reissues and Beatles Rock Band. As if we didn't already know the gory details, it's almost as if they were saying, "We always got along. We never bickered. It was an amicable split. And we all loved Yoko." One would think they would release a deluxe version to beat the boots, because the fact is that there ARE DVDs of it out there.

 

Yeah. I've never understood why they went along with Paul's idea for a film so soon after working flat out for five months on the White Album. I think the band reconvening for another project just on two months later only served to expedite their break up. They may well have benefited from an extended layoff in 1969. This is all Monday quaterback hindsight of course!

 

Back in the day, I thought that the scene in Help! showed a typical (although edited) recording session. Then a few years later I saw Let It Be in the theater. I liked the clips where they played the music, but working on it ??? That bored me.

 

I love the whole movie. For me, it can be 3 hours of rehearsing and I wont be bored at all

 

I certainly am not knowledgeable about film-making and editing, but I'd like to see some real directors and editors critique MLH's work, especially on Let It Be. I think it is terribly shot and very poorly edited. I know it is overly cropped in the VHS release, but even so he did way too many close-ups and just a terrible job of editing things together. And yes, I know that Paul was also saying "come from a far away shot to a real close up - right into Ringo's face".
But Magical Mystery Tour, for all its foibles and lack of plot, actually had much more well-composed shots and better editing than Let it Be.

I've seen quotes where MLH has said that he'd been called back in over the past several years to work on Let it Be and he thought it would be released last year. I know it is proper etiquette to respect a director's wishes when a film is being restored (witness the aspect-ratio controversy about AHDN and how they went with what Lester wanted on the Criterion release). But I would keep MLH as far away from any Let it Be work as possible, based on his previous work.

 

Have you ever heard the whole recording? And have you ever played guitar on a rooftop in January at temperatures probably around 5 degrees celsius? Not to forget the wind....No one can deliver a great performance under these circumstances.
The same concert on a summer day and it would have been great, they would have played well and the pictures would have looked much better.

BTW, they were "rehearsed", they haven't done anything else before.....as documented in the movie..how much more can you rehearse?

 

It was spontaneous and iconic.
And even more impressive under the conditions.

 

I just don't get why everyone thinks that's such a big deal. It is blown way out of proportion. My wife and I have worse arguments than that almost every morning before we go to work and I love the heck out of her and will have been married to her 30 years on the 31st. She's just feisty.

 

No it was the ultimate sign of listlessness. They didn't even bother for the weather, they didn't care for mistakes nor did they do a second attempt under better circumstances. They just wanted to get rid of the project and left their usual sense for reaching perfection aside.
And that is probably the real reason why they show no interest in putting it out again. They are simply ashamed of these performances.
Like maybe Led Zeppelin, who erased themselves from Live Aid....or the Rolling Stones, who put the R'n R Circus into the archives due to a certain "tiredness" in their performance. Although they were much better than the Beatles on the roof.

 

I'm glad they didn't reach for perfection. There's a certain rawness and poignancy to the performance that I like.

 

If you listen through the month of rehearsals of those tunes before the gig it is really remarkable how much the energy level steps up on the roof.

 

Can't believe the negative reaction to the rooftop concert -- it's an awesome experience, and not meant to be "perfect."

Utter nonsense. If they were "ashamed" of the rooftop concert, they wouldn't have included tracks from it in the Anthology project and on Let It Be...Naked.

I have to imagine part of the reason why it hasn't been officially released (in full) is because elements from it were used on the original and remixed Let It Be, Anthology, and it's also not a proper "concert" -- they played several of the songs multiple times, after all, as "takes" to be edited together for the film.

 

Yes and no. Taken in total perhaps, but just considering the tracks performed on the roof, there are excellent alternate versions even from Twickenham when they were in the process of trying out different arrangements for these tracks. Additionally, in the final days at Apple leading up to the rooftop performance, there are excellent alternate studio versions sporting pretty much the final arrangements. Curiously though, these were for the most part bypassed by Glyn Johns in his configurations, and Spector of course mostly went with the rooftop versions.

Regarding the rooftop show itself, under the circumstances they played well and seemed to be taking some enjoyment in the occasion; however if you listen to the whole tape, you realize that they only really jelled through a portion of it (2nd takes of "Don't Let Me Down" and "I've Got a Feeling" are not up to snuff), and it took some well-executed mixing/editing by Spector to make them sound as good as they did on the LP.

 

Entirely subjective, and they themselves disagree -- the second "Don't Let Me Down" was mixed together with the first take on Let It Be...Naked to cover up John's flubs.

 

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but this rumour and bonus-discussion started (as I understand it) when someone did some re-arranging on the Beatles' Youtube channel and a news-site thought the clips got a different upload-date. Or is there another clue going on?

 

Imagine Bob and The Band in similar climes and location and pressure plowing through new tunes like Lo and Behold, Million Dollar Bash and I Shall Be Released..or Incredible String Band or The Stones, CSN&Y it would be par with The Beatles rooftop performance.
They did splendid.

 

Not true, entirely fabricated story, neither Paul nor Ringo have ever blocked the release of Let It Be.