Early in ¡°The Beatles: Get Back,¡± Peter Jackson¡¯s nearly eight-hour documentary on Disney+ about the making of the album ¡°Let It Be,¡± the band forms a tight circle in the corner of a movie soundstage. Inexplicably, Yoko Ono is there.
She perches in reach of John Lennon, her bemused face oriented toward him like a plant growing to the light. When Paul McCartney starts to play ¡°I¡¯ve Got a Feeling,¡± Ono is there, stitching a furry object in her lap. When the band starts into ¡°Don¡¯t Let Me Down,¡± Ono is there, reading a newspaper. Lennon slips behind the piano, and Ono is there, her head hovering above his shoulder. Later, when the group squeezes into a recording booth, Ono is there, wedged between Lennon and Ringo Starr, wordlessly unwrapping a piece of chewing gum and working it between Lennon¡¯s fingers. When George Harrison walks off, briefly quitting the band, there is Ono, wailing inchoately into his microphone.
At first I found Ono¡¯s omnipresence in the documentary bizarre, even unnerving. The vast set only emphasizes the ludicrousness of her proximity. Why is she there? I pleaded with my television set.
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