Intermezzo an Intelligent Study in Five Voices

 

 

 

Intermezzo (2024)

By Sally Rooney

Faber & Faber, 336 pages

★★★★★

 

I admire Irish novelist Sally Rooney, though some critics find her writing antiseptic and claustrophobic. Rooney is not a fan of quotation marks and is generally more cerebral than her characters. In my mind, her intellectualism is a way of adding depth to characters lacking self-awareness. That is certainly true in Intermezzo.

 

In music and drama intermezzo is a short interlude within a larger movement or play. It is also an unexpected moment in a chess match that an opponent might not anticipate. Rooney’s Intermezzo has a chess subtheme, but it is indeed about the unexpected. Without breaks from the norm we’d have little more than a run-of-the-mill tale about a fractured family, bickering brothers, and age gaps. Rooney uses breaks from the norm to create crisis points.

 

The first involves the death of Peter and Ivan Koubek’s* father. Peter is a 32-year-old barrister trying to fight the good fight and often stumbling over his cynicism and bad habits. His brother Ivan is 22, a chess genius whose social skills are so underdeveloped that we suspect he’s on the autism spectrum. Peter has often looked after Ivan, but in a controlling fashion. Ivan was deeply attached to his father and the fact that Peter has handled their father’s death better is just one of many resentments Ivan holds against him. Peter, in turn, is annoyed by Ivan’s immaturity, tantrums, and what he sees as Ivan’s lack of responsibility. We can tell early on that Da’ was the family glue. In a clever intermezzo of her own, Rooney gives each major character a distinct voice; Peter is rational and authoritative, Ivan is boyish and humorous, and the female characters are also quite different.

 

The novel’s central relationship is between the two brothers, but it is the women who pull the strings. Ivan has just won a chess match in which he played nine opponents simultaneously and defeated them all–hardly surprising as he is playing an exhibition against those of far lesser skills. The big conquest is that Ivan meets arts and events manager Margaret Keane. She is separated from her alcoholic and sometimes violent husband Ricky and is estranged from her mother who makes excuses for him. To cut to the chase, Margaret and Ivan become secret lovers and Margaret serves as Ivan’s teacher for many things, including adult life. Ivan, though, is open, gentle, kind, and a terrific lover who couldn’t care less that she is nearly 14 years his senior. Ivan immerses himself in Margaret, tells Peter nothing of her existence, argues with Peter, and eventually cuts off contact his brother.

 

Peter assumes an older-and-wiser stand, but he carries loads of anguish. It doesn’t even begin to cut it to say that his love life is also complicated. He was (and is) deeply in love with Sylvia, a 32-year-old English professor who adored Ivan. They broke up because Sylvia was in an auto accident and suffered a spinal injury that left permanent damage and excruciating pain. She is unable to have sex, but they remain soulmates who spend a lot of time with each other. Through unusual circumstances Peter meets 23-year-old Naomi, who does porn modeling and casual prostitution. From time to time, Peter is also in love with her. Sylvia knows about this and encourages Peter to pursue Naomi. Sylvia is thus a voice of reality and Naomi that of possibility and Ivan-like joy, No wonder the two brothers battle; each is struggling against their own fears, socially awkward situations, and role reversals.  

 

I suspect most readers of this review (and the novel) will reflexively recoil at the unorthodox relationships of Intermezzo. The only remotely conventional one is that of Peter and Sylvia, but it would require Peter to become a secular monk. Rooney gives us three pairs whose viability is up for grabs: Peter and Ivan, Peter and Naomi, and Ivan and Naomi. How will all of this play out? Did I mention there’s a dog, a chess career, and two mothers involved? Or that the respective love affairs are largely closeted?

 

Intermezzo has been called a novel about grief, family, and love. That’s accurate, but we should also add that it was written by an intelligent stylist.

 

Rob Weir

 

* The brothers are Irish but the family ancestry is Slovak. Rooney uses the Koubek surname to emphasize outsider status.

Pitfall Filled with Potholes

 

 

 

Pitfall (1948)

Directed by André de Toth

United Artists, 88 minutes, Not-rated

★★

 

I really like old film noirs, but they’re not all great. Pitfall is a case in point. It has all the elements needed for a good movie minus one: a credible story. I’m not sure if it was the decision of the studio or director André de Toth, but the film’s short running time of 88 minutes served to make motives and character personality too shallow to make sense.

 

Johnny Forbes (Dick Powell) is an insurance investigator for the Olympic Mutual Insurance Company. He’s well-regarded for exposing insurance fraud, though we can tell he’s bored with his job. He is handed a case involving a jailed embezzler Bill Smiley (Byron Barr), who is suspected of channeling insurance money to his girlfriend. Forbes sends a freelance PI, ex-cop “Mac” MacDonald (Raymond Burr) to visit Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott). When he hears that she’s gorgeous, Johnny removes Mac from the case and personally investigates Stevens. Almost literally before you can say, “hot-ticket model,” Johnny has fallen for Mona, though he has a wife Sue (Jane Wyatt) and a gee-whiz son Tommy.

 

This touches off “I saw her first” animosity with Mac, who snoops on Johnny and stalks Mona. To emphasize his point, Mac beats the fedora off of Johnny. When Mac follows Johnny home and threatens to reveal his infidelity, Forbes promises to kill Mac if he ever threatens his family again. Meanwhile, Smiley gets paroled, wonders why Mona isn’t wearing the engagement ring he bought her and, thanks to Mac’s visits while he was in the tank, wants to know about both Johnny and Mac.

 

Pitfall was nearly nixed by the Hays Commission, the Hollywood censorship bureau, for not sufficiently following the code for upholding the virtues of family life. The last 15 minutes or so of Pitfall is a mess that makes me believe that whatever grit had been in the script was snipped in a hasty rewrite in which Smiley is killed, Mac’s attempt to force Mona to run away with him is melodramatically thwarted, Johnny becomes a suspect in Smiley’s demise, tells the police the real story, and gets off scot-free because Mona confirms his story. Johnny confesses his unfaithfulness to Sue, but she agrees to stay with him though she’s not sure she believes his tale of a one-off infatuation.

 

Oh yeah, there’s a backstory also about a briefcase and a boat, but you’d have to care enough to find out how they fit in. Trust me; it’s not worth watching to find out. Powell is okay as an all-American type in over his head and Burr makes for a creepy heavy, though Barr acts as if he swallowed a cliché dictionary on how to be a thug. Scott is indeed sultry, but her role is preposterous in Pitfall unless you really do believe in love at first sight. Even then, you’d have to swallow the further belief that she’d fall for a married man though her gangster boyfriend’s graft benefitted her. Who would be dumb enough to risk being fingered as part of part of the scheme?

 

From the field of architecture the phrase “less is more” has entered popular parlance as folk wisdom. That is certainly not true in Pitfall. This film needs a whole lot more getting- to-know-you character development to make sense of what we see on the screen. Sure, we see Johnny and Mona having a good time­–she’s a goodtime bad girl to his man in the gray flannel suit­–but the impression we get is that Johnny is bored in his job, not in his marriage. Likewise, if we are going to buy an ex-cop like Mac becoming a stalker and trying to abduct Mona, we need to know details of what has driven him to such desperation.

 

Jay Dratler wrote the novel upon which the movie was based. At 192 pages it’s not exactly a tome, but surely there was enough to flesh out the narrative. If I were retroactively to judge the movie version, I’d say that Karl Kamb’s screenplay is the namesake pitfall.

 

Rob Weir

More from the Stacks: Baragwanath, Cheng , Montague, Ware, McCann

 

 

From the Stacks III:  Baragwanath, Cheng , Montague, Ware, McCann

 

Time for more novels from my book cache. I’ve got so many new and old ones that it’s a tossup which will happen first, a collapse of my shelves or the need to buy more memory for my iPad Kindle reader. I’m thinking of changing my name to Stack-o-lee.

 

 

 

Tom Baragwanath is a New Zealand novelist whose debut novel Paper Cage (Knopf, 2024, 314 pp.) is set near the farming village of Masterton, NZ, where he grew up. Lorraine Henry is a records clerk for the local police. That’s not a post that gives her a lot of street cred, but when kids begin to disappear, she grows suspicious about the half-hearted police attempts to find them. That couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that  the kids are Māori, could it? When her Māori nephew Bradley Mākara disappears as well, Lorraine has her answer. Not that it gives her more influence, as Bradley’s father is a known drug runner and gang member. Lorraine’s effort to save disappeared children involves making inroads into a rough Māori community, working with a detective, and trusting people who she’s not sure she should trust. It’s a tense novel, even when it’s not as coherent or as logical as it should be. ★★★

 

 

 

Can a rabbit teach a family what really matters? It does in The Burrow (Tin House, 2024, 187 pp.), a short novel from Australian writer/doctor Melanie Cheng. Jin and Amy Lee are workaholic parents to 10-year-old Lucie in the waning days of Melbourne’s COVID restrictions. Lockdown, a first child who died, Amy’s stasis, and Jin juggling an affair don’t make for a happy household . Nor do stay-overs by Amy’s mother Pauline, who loves Lucie but is estranged from both Amy and Jin. So how does adopting a bunny help? Pauline reads Watership Down with Lucie, who promptly names her rabbit Fiver. Rabbits are not always a good pet; as several characters note, they are nervous because they are “prey animals.”  The Burrow is, at times, a charming novel, but it is not a children’s book. It’s about what it means to care for people and animals, how to cope with fear, and how to get centered. ★★★★

 

 

 

 How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund (Ecco, 2024, 241 pp.) might sound like a title from Fredrik Backman, but it’s a new novel from Anna Montague about a psychologist who happens to have Scandinavian ancestry. Magda is the oldest member of her practice, but has devoted colleagues who’d do anything for her. She suffers from anthropophobia (social anxiety) and lives an intellectual but insular life. She seldom ventures out for drinks with her office mates and been known to duck out of parties in her honor. Luckily she has Sara, the kind of friend who can finish her sentences, badger her to leave her New York apartment, and  convince Magda to agree to a secret plan to celebrate her upcoming 70^th birthday. When Sara suddenly dies, Magda’s mourning becomes depression and a burden to bear. She’s never been fond of Sara’s husband, who tasks her with dealing with Sara’s ashes. Plus, Magda discovers that Sara had a road trip planned for the two of them that Magda feels honor-bound to take. Along the way she discovers her true identity. It is often said that psychologists are among the most screwed up people in the world. I don’t agree and think it’s a cheap trick to make Magda so self-unaware, but the novel has keen insights into friendship and grieving. ★★★

 

 

 

Ruth Ware is considered a star among twisty mystery/thriller writers. The Death of Mrs. Westaway (Scout Press, 2018, 368 pp.) has a delightful old-fashioned feel to it. That’s by design; Ware admits her love of Agatha Christie and wrote Mrs. Westaway in Christie’s style. Harriet “Hal” Westaway works as a Tarot card reader on a Penzance pier, but has bills she can’t pay, including the rental on her booth. The owner of the latter sends a thug to break a few things and promises she’s next unless she coughs up the dough. Hal has no way to do that, but smells opportunity when a letter informs her that she has inherited money and an estate house from her grandmother. Hal knows she’s the wrong Westaway but cooks up a plan to go to the estate in Cornwall to bilk the rich and get out before she’s discovered. That’s the scheme, but what if she’s wrong? Do not think Cinderella tale. The Westaway family has issues, bickers like caged badgers, and divides into two camps over whether Hal is legit. Is money at the center of all? Too simple. This novel has it all: foul play, dark and stormy nights, long buried secrets, a threatening housekeeper, things that go bump in the night, and desperate flight. If you think an estate house sounds romantic, don’t! Ware’s book contains many unlikely Christie-like touches, but they are of the sort that make both writers enticing. ★★★★

 

 

 

If you’ve never read Let the Great World Spin (Random House, 2009, 350 pp.), you should. It’s a complex book that is poetic, non-linear, and told from the perspective of 11 separate characters, but it’s an extraordinary piece of literature for which author Colm McCann rightly won a National Book Award. The title comes from Tennyson. It’s next lines are, “We stumble on. It is enough.” McCann leverages those sentiments in a novel about vulnerability and the fragility of life. Interspersed within the narrative are metaphors posing as descriptions of Philippe Petit’s 1974 walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center. Two Irish brothers, Corrigan, a Jesuit street minister, and Ciaran are the novel’s fulcrum. Ciaran visits Corrigan in his Bronx apartment in the projects. Despite obvious dangers, Corrigan leaves his apartment unlocked when he’s at work at a nursing home so that the hookers can use the restroom or stay if they need rest or shelter. Ciaran is appalled by those “hanging on to (Corrigan) like he was some bright hallelujah in the shitbox of what the world really is.” McCann deftly intersects the lives of prostitutes, a judge, his wife, mothers who lost sons in Vietnam, an overweight African American woman, the blood disease TTP, and other voices and situations. The key secondary characters include street walkers Tillie and her daughter Jazzlyn, a mother of two. The fragility of life is reinforced in a hit-and-run accident that kills two key individuals and the affects upon survivors. In an epilogue, Ciaran revisits New York 32 years later (2006) that serves the great world spinning theme. A name change by Jazzlyn’s grown daughter is significant. Those who lived in or visited New York in the 1970s can attest to McCann’s observation of its Inferno-like decadence and how much it changed. I won’t tell you that this is an easy novel to digest, but I will say that you’ll know you’ve read a masterful work  that invites pondering good, evil, naiveté, pessimism, consequences, hope, race, and injustice.

 

Rob Weir

 

Green for Danger: See the Humor Audiences in 1946 Did Not

 

 

 

Green for Danger (1946)

Directed by Sidney Gilliat

General Film Distributors, 91 minutes, not rated

★★★★

 

It’s a comedy. It’s a thriller. It’s a mystery, a tale of power, jealousy, and indeterminate romance. It’s twisty, silly, and horrifying. Green for Danger was banned because British officials feared it would cause the general public to avoid hospitals. That’s how a film that is now well-regarded lost money in its day.

 

The film was released in 1946 but was based upon a 1941 novel by Christianna Brand that has an intriguing backstory. Brand was married to a military surgeon whose anesthesiologist jocularly told her of a clever way to commit murder. She based one of her Inspector Cockrill tales on it, director Sidney Gilliat read it while on a train journey, and adapted it for the cinema.

 

The date of Brand’s novel is significant. Great Britain went to war against Germany in September 1939 and the following May, Adolf Hitler’s Luftwaffe began its infamous Blitz bombings of London, which it extended across the British Isles. By the time the RAF (Royal Air Force) gained control of the skies in May 1941, 60% of London was destroyed, as many as 43,000 citizens were killed, over 100,000 were injured, two million homes were destroyed, and over 3,300 airmen lost their lives. One of the most dreaded Nazi weapons was the V-1, an early cruise missile, which also terrorized. One could hear bombers flying overhead but when things grew silent, seek cover as it was impossible to know where the missiles would strike.

 

It was gutsy of Brand to write a cheeky comedy during the Blitz and of Gilliat to make a film involving events fresh in people’s memory. Having said all of this, Green for Danger is not a war film in any sense other than taking place during one. It is set in a hospital somewhere in the English countryside that treats civilians as well as military personnel. Its nurses are called “sister” and its male medical staff flirted shamelessly and clashed egotistically. Dr. Eden (Leo Genn) is a combination of charm and smarm. He has his eye on Nurse Linley (Sally Gray), who seems to be wavering in her affection for Dr. Barnes (Trevor Howard). Poor Dr. White (Ronald Adam), the titular head of the unit, has his hands full trying to keep his staff in line.

 

Trouble begins with the local postman Joseph Higgins (Moore Marriott) is injured in a V-1 attack. His wounds are not serious but he needs an operation. He hears something that spooks him badly as he’s wheeled in for surgery and dies on the operating table. Barnes’ competence comes into question, as it was he who administered the anesthesia, though he insists he followed correct procedure. Enter Scotland Yard Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim). To call him unorthodox is an injustice for the umbrella carrying Cockrill, a seeming goofball eccentric with a sharp mind and sharper tongue.

 

You no doubt suspect he will solve how poor Joe Higgins died, but part of Cockrill’s charm is that his instincts are not always correct. Heaven knows his directness doesn’t do much to calm the spurned Sister Bates (Judy Campbell), nervous Nurse Woods (Megs Jenkins), the normally unflappable Nurse Sanson (Rosamund John), or any of the other women at the hospital. Things get really tense after another murder and the shocking news that a gas attack will probably kill the popular Linley.

 

The comic relief in Green for Danger comes from the pretentious battles between the doctors and from Cockrill. Well-known actor Robert Morley was originally offered the role, but it was a pure stroke of genius to replace him with Alastair Sim. Not only was he letter perfect in the role, but he was also the sort of actor who makes you laugh just by looking at him. His mannerisms, not his appearance, put me in min d of Jacques Tati’s bumbling Monsieur Hulot. Sim gets the last word in the film and it’s delicious.

 

Things were hazy when the film was released, but only partly because World War II was barely over. Green for Danger was perhaps too clever for its day, with audiences and several important reviewers missing the fact that it’s actually a sendup of detective stories, especially those of the omniscient variety. It’s a rare movie that is easier to understand 79 years later!

 

Rob Weir

The Manchurian Candidate is Still Powerful

 

 

 

 

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Produced and directed by John Frankenheimer

United Artists, 126 minutes, PG-13

In black and white

★★★★★

 

Most psychiatrists either do not believe in brainwashing or have declared it unproven. Yet, when heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped (1974) and subsequently helped her captors rob banks, her counsel insisted she was a victim of Stockholm syndrome, in which an abused person comes to identify with her captors/abusers. You can make up your own mind about such things, but when The Manchurian Candidate came out (1962) mind control was indeed considered a real thing. The Cold War between the United States and the communist bloc was at a fever pitch. (The Berlin Wall was less than a year old.)

 

The Manchurian Candidate is a classic Cold War film from when President John F. Kennedy was in office, though George Axelrod’s script was based upon a 1959 novel from Richard Condon. Note that I said “novel.” Yet to audiences of its day it felt like a documentary, a belief enhanced by the use of melodramatic narration from Paul Frees. The movie’s depiction of North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet uses of brainwashing was taken so seriously that the CIA launched what is now a discredited program: MKUltra, the use of psychedelics (including LSD) to interrogate enemy captives.

 

The Manchurian Candidate is considered a film of such importance that it is preserved in the Library of Congress. If that doesn’t sway you, know that it’s considered an American classic and is indeed a very fine film. Stay with it, as the opening is bold and odd. A bunch of American GIs sit intently listening to a lecture on gardening. Huh? We only catch on when the women’s faces dissolve into those of Korean, Chinese, and Russian military personnel. We are actually witnessing a show trial of a different sort. An American platoon captured during the Korean War was brainwashed in China. As a demonstration of how effective it has been, Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is shown a Queen of Diamonds and ordered to kill two of his men as victims and their peers sit passively.

 

As the film moves back to the United States, Shaw is hailed as a hero. Shaw is vaguely unsettled, but more by the fact that thinks his mother Eleanor (Angela Lansbury) and her fungible second husband, Senator John Iselin (James Gregory) are creeps. (The novel involved mother/son forced incest, a big no-no for a 1962 movie.) Also troubled is recently promoted Major Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) who has reoccurring dreams that Shaw was a hated squad leader who killed two of his own men. Another soldier has the same dreams and Marco is assigned to intelligence to investigate.

 

Shaw’s handlers prove to his American contacts that he is a controllable sleeper agent assassin by ordering Shaw to murder a newspaper editor critical of Senator Iselin, a rabid right-winger browbeaten by his wife Eleanor. She advises him, for instance, to claim that the Defense Department is riddled with communists. If that rings a bell, Iselin is clearly based upon infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy’s during the early 1950s. In the film, Shaw keeps tabs on Iselin’s liberal foe, Senator Thomas Jordan (John McGiver) and ingratiates himself to Jordan’s daughter Jocelyn (Leslie Parrish). While we’re at it, let’s assign a love interest for Major Marco, “Rosie” Cheyney (Janet Leigh). They first meet on a train and låater bails Marco out of jail for assaulting a Korean (Henry Silva!) he recognizes as an agent.

 

The Manchurian Candidate is terrifically acted, which more than compensates for situations we today might find overdone or implausible. Perhaps some of the names of the actors are unfamiliar to younger readers. In 1962, though, this was an all-star cast. Harvey was perhaps better known in Britain than in North America, but he was well cast for his icy, withdrawn demeanor. Lansbury was a veteran of stage, screen, and television–think Tony awards, Oscar nominations, Golden Globes, and Emmys–and Leigh had a distinguished movie career. She was the gal in the shower in Psycho and the mother of Jamie Lee Curtis. Could Sinatra act? He sure could. Even his mistakes were praised. (Watch for an out-of-focus scene in Manchurian Candidate used to show disorientation.)

 

Will Marco be able to stop Shaw? The Manchurian Candidate is a beat-the-clock thriller with sneaky motives, oily villains, and a shocking ending. Beware the Queen of Diamonds!

 

Rob Weir

 

 

The Good Boss is a Superb Comedy

 

 

 

 

The Good Boss/El bueno patrón (2021/22)

Written and Directed by Fernando Léon de Anora

Tripictures ,120 minutes, Not rated (sexual situations, drugs, language)

In Spanish with subtitles

★★★★★

 

Unless you live near an art cinema, chances are good you’ve not seen The Good Boss. You should; it shows how a comedy can be funny without being inane. Director Fernando Léon de Anora gets an excellent performance from Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Biutiful). This movie was nominated for over 40 awards in Spain and Europe and won 34 times!

 

Julio Blanco (Bardem) owns an industrial scale factory and fancies himself a caring boss. Every morning he smiles as he enters the factory, greets employees by name and encourages his workers to come to him with any problem. He also prone to giving motivational talks, the most recent of which was delivered from atop a cherry picker. He informs everyone that the company is a finalist for an award of excellence that would reflect well on all of them. Is Blanco a boss with a heart of gold? Where’s the fun in that? Lots of things go wrong in advance of the visiting team’s arrival. It starts with the need to scale back costs and the firing of José (Oscar de la Fuente), an accountant.

 

José begs Blanco to reconsider and claims he will lose his children. When he is nonetheless let go, José isn’t the kind of guy to go quietly. Instead, he becomes a one-man protest group with a bullhorn and a ramshackle camp outside the factory gate. Because it’s on public land, there’s little Blanco or his Falstaffian guard Román (Fernando Abizul) can do about it. Each day José finds new ways to annoy Blanco.

 

Nonetheless, Blanco believes his good reputation gives him influence. When long-time employee Fortunata (Celso Bugallo) asks Blanco to talk to his son Salva, Blanco does so and secures him a job as a courier for this wife’s shop. Alas, Salva (Martin Páez) is a racist skinhead punk who plays Blanco like a cheap accordion, so don’t expect this to go well. To make matters worse, his floor manager Miralles (Manolo Solo) whom he has known since childhood is depressed and screwing up orders. Miralles tells Blanco  that his wife has left him. Blanco to the rescue? How would you feel if someone tried to intervene in your personal affairs? Even if you’ve never taken a psychology class you might suspect that Blanco is reality-challenged. Even though he has a daughter and is married to the striking Adela (Sonia Almarcha), Blanco has a roving eye for a new intern, Lilianna (Almundena Amor).

 

In an attempt to cheer up Miralles, Blanco takes him to a bar staffed by ladies of easy virtue. Something happens there that seriously complicates matters, as does a dinner with a couple he and Adela have known for many years that is beyond awkward. Blanco finds himself in a power play he cannot win. Will Blanco be able to add the award for excellence to his wall of citations and trophies? Let’s just say that changes are made.

 

The Good Boss is like a more subtle version of  9 to 5 and with the tasteful score of Zetia Montes rather than the downhome country of Dolly Parton in 9 to 5. * The Good Boss, though, is funnier. Bardem doesn’t do physical comedy like Buster Keaton, but he does borrow a page of bathos from Keaton’s book. He practically oozes befuddlement when forced to confront the gaps between how he’d like to be perceived and how others see him. For the most part, he is a good boss, but he constantly flunks the Boundaries 101 test.

 

The Good Boss is well-acted all around, even when the parts are small. Because everyone is so effective, we see things Blanco does not. We can tell, for instance, that Fortuna is willing to do things to keep his job, but he doesn’t want to be Blanco’s buddy. There is also a matter of key employees leveraging the fact that corporate culture operates on power arrangements, not smiles and smarm.

 

But let’s not overanalyze. The Good Boss is indeed a comedy that plays things for laughs, not a sociology class. Check it out on Fandango or Paramount + and see how understatement is a hoot of a different  volume.

 

Rob Weir

The Beatles: Get Back Details the End of an Era

 

 

 

The Beatles: Get Back (2021)

Directed by Peter Jackson

WingNut Films/Apple/Disney + 468 minutes (3 episodes of DVDs)

PG-13 (tons of smoking and language)

★★★★

 

It took a while to get my hands on The Beatles: Get Back  whose streaming rights are owned by Disney +. I watched it on DVD on consecutive nights, which is how Disney aired it. I finished on January 30, the 56^th anniversary of The Beatles’ unauthorized 1969 rooftop concert at Apple Corps, the final public appearance of the band.

 

Director Peter Jackson took on a massive project that consumed four years. Even with extensive editing this “documentary” checks in at nearly 8 hours of viewing time. I placed documentary in quotes, though, as there is very little narrative structure, external commentary, or attempt to evaluate what you see. Jackson uses raw footage of a month of The Beatles biting off more than they could chew. 

 

Each member of the band knew they had reached a creative crossroads and that The Beatles had run its course. The film follows the Fab Four’s intention of going out with a bang: a TV show, a film, and a live performance– all in a month. (Ringo Starr had to be on the set for filming of the satirical comedy The Magic Christian.) It didn’t help matters that they intended to record up to 30 songs that didn’t rehash any of their earlier releases, yet had little idea of what they would be. In retrospect the Let It Be album was a miracle.

 

Episode One covers days one through seven. The Beatles assembled in Twickenham Studios, which was supposed to be where the TV show would be recorded and maybe the site of an indoor concert. The band had writers block and disliked barn-like Twickenham. They wasted time goofing off and the new material could only charitably be called rudimentary. The first episode is the only one to rely on archival materials to supplement personal remembrances. Linda Eastman–Paul’s wife two months later–snapped a lot of photos and Yoko Ono was practically glued to John Lennon. There was tension in the studio, but not between John and Paul; George Harrison felt ignored and abruptly quit the band.  

 

Episode Two looks at the hiatus before George rejoined The Beatles, and days 8-16 in the studio. Twickenham was abandoned for the intimate confines of Apple Corps. This served to lift spirits and get creative juices running. The concert was put on hold, though ultimately, the TV plan was the one to go. The Beatles had time to noodle around with everything from their back catalogue to early rock n’ roll, Dylan tunes, old time country, and show music, as the studio wasn’t yet fully equipped. But you can see the joy coming back, especially after Billy Preston joined in to play electric keyboards and light the room with his infectious enthusiasm. The only visible discomfort came from a weird visit from Peter Sellers and from worried producer George Martin. The songs were still rough, but The Beatles even reconsidered doing a concert.

 

Episode Three covers days 17-22; that is, from shaping a handful of songs and  performing a 42–minute rooftop concert that startled and thrilled most people along Savile Row. Spoilsport complaints of crowd ed streets and noise sent police officers to Apple to tell them to stop the concert. This footage is like a cross between Monty Python and Keystone Kops. Then it was back to the studio to finish the album. (How are you going to get a baby grand piano onto a rooftop?)

 

Assessment:  

 

·      Get Back is overly long but its tedious moments reveal how long it takes to make magic out of scraps.

·      There is very little truth to tales of Paul and John feuding, and even less to Paul’s pique over Yoko’s presence. He, in fact, defended Yoko when questions arose whether she was disruptive.

·      It was Paul who insisted that The Beatles should not recycle and it was he who was the most creative. He grew annoyed with the lack of focus in the studio but he also had a heart-to-heart with John and insisted that John was the real leader of the band.

·      Paul played the piano beautifully and was okay as a drummer. Each band member played multiple instruments and Ringo was okay on guitar!

·      Ringo was preoccupied and George clearly wanted out, but what a wonderful moment to see Paul and John grinning through their performances.

·      Peter Jackson was off his game in Get Back. Former students might recall me insisting one of your papers needed sharper focus and better editing. Jackson might have flunked my class!

 

Rob Weir