The Beatles: Get Back director Peter Jackson overcame formidable competition from some Hollywood heavyweights tonight to claim the Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program.
His rivals for the honor included Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio for George Carlin’s American Dream, Amy Poehler for Lucy and Desi, W. Kamau Bell for We Need to Talk About Cosby, and Andrew Rossi for The Andy Warhol Diaries.
It was Jackson’s second win of the night at the Creative Arts Ceremony in Los Angeles, after The Beatles: Get Back won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series (the latter award went to Jackson, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon, Olivia Harrison, Clare Olssen, and Jonathan Clyde).
The Disney+ series was built from material originally shot in 1970 for Let It Be, a documentary about the making of the Beatles’ album of that name. Jackson limited himself almost exclusively to footage and audio that had never been seen or heard before, skillful weaving it into a three-episode series that challenged existing notions of why The Beatles broke up (Let It Be marked their final release, coming out in May 1970, a month after they announced their breakup).
Accepting the award for directing, the New Zealand native reflected back on his youth.
“[Let It Be director] Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot all this footage in 1969. I was an eight year old in New Zealand, a Boy Scout wearing short pants,” Jackson noted, “and for reasons I don’t quite understand, 50 years later The Beatles entrusted me to take the footage and make a film. But to be a tiny part of The Beatles’ story was a dream come true for that eight year old kid. So thank you so much.”
The Beatles: Get Back swept all five categories in which it was nominated: Outstanding Series, directing, picture editing, sound editing, and sound mixing. It debuted on Disney + last November, instantly earning critical acclaim, as well as praise from McCartney, among others. The ex-Beatle said Jackson’s series came truer to reflecting his memories of the anxious and contentious period when The Beatles were producing incredible music, but were on the brink of dissolution.
“I didn’t want to make the movie about the Beatles breaking up,” Jackson told Mike Fleming Jr. last month at Deadline’s Contenders TV: The Nominees panel. “It’s not a film about a band that’s breaking up — it’s about a band that’s trying not to break up.”
The Oscar-winning filmmaker (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) added, “We were able to include things in [Get Back] that we thought were important, but there’s wonderful stuff that we couldn’t include. I made sure that the historically important things were in there.”
The two-night Creative Arts Emmys ceremony will be edited into a show that will air on FXX network and stream on Hulu next Saturday, September 10. The live PrimeTime Emmy telecast will air Monday, September 12 on NBC.
