MovieChat Forums > Let It Be (2024) Discussion > Paul McCartney hates this film

Paul McCartney hates this film

posted 19 years ago by Tbeer
58 replies | jump to latest

As to the question of why Let it Be has never been legally released on DVD,or
to much extent in other formats: My questions to various sorces came back with
something to the effect that Paul McCartney has been the legal holdout/up, not
Michael Jackson and Yoko Ono etc,due to the fact he hates the film and would like it buried. Now we all know Paul and co hated the LP due to post production dubbing by Phil Spector but I'm unsure to the validity of him being the one to keep it out of circulation indefinately.....anyone else heard this? If LET IT BE was indeed ever released on vhs in the 80's it must have been a very limited
release worse than HELP because I never saw it for sale or rental unlike all the other Beatles films and concerts.

[–] flyte-parte 13 years ago

I think its very sad that everybody is so resentful towards Paul.

Paul was trying his best to hold the band together because he wanted to continue making music with these guys. The Beatles sold and I honestly believe Paul felt more secure and solid within this unit.

If you watch the latest George Harrison documentary 'Living in a Material World', Ringo actually admits that most days Paul would be frantically calling them up to try and get them into the studio but they were chilling in the garden.

Now imagine -

You're quite happy being in a band with your mates and you write GOOD music that is very often put on the album AND you make money from it. You'll probably be eager to get into the studio.

But your mates won't take your phone calls because they don't want to go into work and are drifting away.

Paul probably panicked and took the reins because John Lennon seemed uninterested. The band was John's but John was not moving them forward in Paul's eyes so he did what he thought was best and took over.

In regards to the argument with George - he was being a bit of a dick to George but at this point their musical direction was completely different. Paul still wanted to make pop music with funny narratives whereas George wanted to make serious, thought provoking Eastern inspired numbers that may not have been popular at the time.

I like to think of their argument as something my cousin and I did when we were kids. We would play with soft toys and I would have a story in my head and a direction I would want to go in - obviously it wouldn't pan out like it had in my head as she is not me. So I would TELL her what to do and what to say and she often did it back to me if she wanted her story in her mind to pan out.

Paul was hearing something different to George and it was PAUL's song. Paul did get very much up his own arse - no doubting that but to hate Paul for doing something he thought was right is quite harsh.

I would have done the same thing if I was in his position.

[–] phantom2-2 13 years ago

it's really a shame they couldn't have just agreed to take a year or two off to do solo stuff and then come back refreshed.

putting out an album or two every year the way they did is going to inspire anybody to want to chill in their garden instead of rush back into the studio.

(the ignore list: intracoastalcruiser, jsstyger, uglytheclown)

[–] zippyzay 13 years ago

People who attack McCartney for how badly he comes off in the Let it Be film for trying to take a leadership role should remember that he was also leader and controlled the artistic direction for Abbey Road and Sgt Pepper, nobody complains about his egotism when they are involved. His methods of communication with the band did look extremely annoying and I sympathise with John and George's position, but at the same time I think it's unfair to vilify Paul considering that without him the band would have probably crumbled in '67/'68 and we wouldn't have had all that great later music. :)

[–] dave-1273 13 years ago

I agree Straker’s post is good, but I also tend to agree with the poster who said s/he is more pro-Paul than Straker. I haven’t seen LIB for years so forgive me if I misquote or misremember, but I seem to recall a scene where Paul is trying to arrange a shot of Ringo on drums, and suggesting the camera swoop in on Ringo, “He looks beautiful sitting there on his drums” he says or something like that. They’re not exactly the words of someone who wants the camera trained on him all the time. It seems to me more like an example of someone trying to get his band mates involved. Regarding John looking bored at Paul’s talking at him, I think I have read interviews with John where he comments on this period and he wasn’t going through a great time anyway, what with drugs and so on. Wasn’t he about to go through primal scream and so on? I also think Ringo looks stoned through most of it – it was kind of a joke a mate and I had when watching it, seeing the completely out of it look on Ringo’s face. John’s comments on this period I think largely blamed the drugs, saying they got him paranoid so he had an attitude towards everyone of, ‘It’s you fault that I’m going through this, it’s your fault that I’m feeling so bad.’ Also, I have read that George was just as p***ed off with John as he was with Paul, mainly for putting Yoko before the band. Again, not exactly the stance of someone who doesn’t want to be there any more. Years later, Paul was reconciled with both John and George; sadly, George and John were not reconciled. There were still differences. I read in the papers that George’s song ‘All Those Years Ago’ was originally written with different lyrics, having a pop at John, but when John was killed, George changed the words to something pro-John. I can’t say if any of that’s true – it was in a tabloid after all! But when I listen to ATYA I always think it sounds a bit, well, poppy and light rather than a tribute from one mate to another…as though it had been written for some other purpose, something lighter. That’s just my opinion.
Sorry if any of my points repeat any made by other people.

[–] jschillig 12 years ago

This. X1000.

After all, isn't this what they did (on a much smaller scale) between the end of touring and the Revolver/Pepper era? George went to India, Paul composed music for a film, and they all seemed to recharge their batteries a bit.

If they'd done so, it might have solved a LOT of problems. John, not feeling so confined by the group structure, might not have passive-aggressively tried to shove his girlfriend into the others' faces so much. (I don't hate Yoko, but it's true that she really had no more right to barge in and start criticizing the boys' music than they had to barge backstage at her performance art and start criticizing THAT.) Paul, likewise, might not have come off as so controlling if he felt the group (and their friendships) weren't in danger of coming apart--that, even if they weren't currently playing together, they were still mates. (His behavior seems a little easier to take when you think that his identity was so tied up in being a Beatle--so much that he was deeply depressed for a while after the breakup.) George would have found more of an outlet for his own music and not felt relegated to "little brother" status, and so not felt resentful of the group. Ringo--well, he was always pretty easygoing anyway.

Of course, not every good thing lasts forever, and maybe the Beatles wouldn't have done so under any circumstances. It's just such a shame that there had to be so much bitterness about it. I've often thought that the real monkey wrench in the Beatles' relationship with each other wasn't Brian Epstein's death, it was the whole misbegotten venture that was Apple. (Of course, it's been straightened out in later years, but the whole thing was just a mess in the late sixties.) Because of Apple, there was all that tangled financial mishmash, there was Allen Klein stepping in to clear it up and bringing dissension between Paul and the others, and there was the final awful mess with all those lawsuits.

Maybe if it hadn't been for Apple and all its problems, it WOULD have been a matter of, "Okay, we'll take a breather from each other for a while, work on some solo projects, and see what happens. If we really want to play together again, great--if not, no hard feelings, we're still friends."

[–] phantom2-2 12 years ago

good point - apple certainly hosed things up for them financially, and when big money gets into the picture that's rarely a good thing. maybe brian epstein could have made it work (and avoided the whole klein/eastman fiasco)...who knows?

it really is too bad that they didn't take saturday night live up on their offer to play a couple songs. i bet ringo would even have agreed to play for less. :)

[–] jefgg 13 years ago

Paul probably hates the movie because it exposes him as a jerk.

[–] lirico2spinto 12 years ago

Which is exactly what he was in this film. John was as much a jerk though-I can't believe that man had the gall to suggest they replace George with Eric Clapton. If I was Harrison, I would have punched him in the face for that. What was the point of George being in the band in the first place if John felt that way?

[–] jschillig 12 years ago

I also have to say...I was a bit bugged when I read some comments from John dissing the song "Let It Be", which I consider one of Paul's best up there with "Yesterday", "Eleanor Rigby", and "Blackbird".

Now, granted, I don't know which interview these quotes came from--it may have been from one of the ones immediately post-breakup, where John was distancing himself from EVERYTHING about his old bandmates. But it kind of bugs me that when John writes a gentle, heartfelt ballad that refers to HIS deceased mother ("Julia", which don't get me wrong, I love), it's okay, but when Paul writes a gentle, heartfelt ballad that refers to his deceased mother, it's sentimental twaddle?

[–] pturman-929-979676 12 years ago

I remember reading in an interview that John LIKED the song Let it Be. In fact, he said Let it Be & Long & Winding Road were the last great creative gasps Paul had before making nothing but muzak after that (I'm paraphrasing, of course).

[–] winsfordtown 12 years ago

If you look at pictures of Eric Clapton from late 1968 to early 1969 he was morphing in to a George clone.

[–] psychocosmic-1 12 years ago

Long hair and beard? We all did!
Clapton suffered from that his guitar-star fame has been pushed down thanks to the unsurpassed presence of Hendrix!

[–] Petronius Arbiter II 10 years ago

...whereas George wanted to make serious, thought provoking Eastern inspired numbers that may not have been popular at the time.

I strongly suspect that if John and Paul had been open to including more of George's songs than they ever were, especially during the "Let It Be" period, the band would never have broken up.

It's very hard to cope with a situation in which your closest associates always say they love you, and think they really mean it, but they don't respect you, at least, not nearly as much as you know you deserve.

"I don't deduce, I observe."

[–] Grammaw_Oddree 10 years ago

I have a hard time believing that McCartney is preventing this from being released to DVD simply because he hates the film. First of all, the scene where Paul fights with George is already featured on "The Beatles Anthology" and nearly every other documentary on the band. Secondly, The parts where Paul McCartney really shines in the studio are the parts that we don't see as much as the parts where Paul acts bossy. So by releasing this film in it's entirety, people will get to see the whole picture and not just the fussy, bossy parts taken out of context. It would also make more money for McCartney because people would love to buy it. I certainly would. My point is... that everyone has seen the bossy Paul during the "Let It Be" sessions without this movie being released.

[–] sailorspysedna 10 years ago

John actually said Spector "worked wonders" with Across the Universe.

He, George and Ringo had hired that Allan Klein guy who hired Phil Spctor.

I actually have a DVD of Let it Be, but unfortunately, it's a bootleg I got from a music store; I believe it is, there are German subtitles that pop up randomly at times...