They Shall Not Grow Old. (15.)
Directed by Peter Jackson. 99 mins. Available now on Digital Download, Blu-ray and DVD from Warner Bros.
When classic black and white films were first colourized there was outrage. Adding colour to Laurel and Hardy or Casablanca was, quite rightly, seen as a piece of cultural vandalism. But when Lord of The Rings director Peter Jackson did it to some First World War footage the Imperial War Museum had stashed away in its archives, everybody fell over themselves to shower it with praise. When it premiered at the London Film Festival it was treated with sombre reverence and was shipped out to schools and shown on the BBC in November as part of the commemoration of the hundred years since the armistice. World War I, and in particular the trench warfare of the Western Front, has become a fixed point in culture, the default expression of the futility and ugliness of war. The sanctity of the remembrance of the Great War will never grow old.
Making the film wasn't just a matter of adding colour: the print quality had to be restored and retimed it so it all ran at 24 frames per second. The footage was then paired with audio recordings of servicemen provided by the BBC. Jackson presents the material as a straightforward, beginning to end narrative, taking us from the excited young men in 1914 signing up to do their bit through to their bittersweet return to Britain in 1918. There is no narration, the reminiscences of 120 ex-servicemen guide us through. In this film, like most films about the conflict, this World War is all about the trenches of the western front. Other areas of conflict are available, but they don't get a look in.
The colourising doesn't appear until 25 minutes in. The choice of when to switch from colour to black and white has great symbolic significance whether it's in The Wizard of Oz or A Matter Of Life and Death. Jackson chooses to leave the scenes in Britain, of the call-up and the training, monochrome and reserves colour for the battlefield. So the fighting is seen as something apart from and above the dull plod of history that produced it. It has a vivacity the rest of the world doesn't. The quality of the restored footage varies wildly but the best of it really is extraordinary and it does give it fresh life. It's almost like raising the dead; in black and white this footage was sombre historical record – still powerful but distant. In colour, it has the intrusive intimacy of a home movie. We are peepholing back through time.
Ultimately though what makes the film isn't the pictures but the voices. Unidentified, the 120 recount their experiences with candour. You hear of the day-to-day deprivations of their lives and the feeling of being in battle, of thinking you will die at any second and what it is to kill. It is striking that however much hardship they describe, however much they rail against the futility of war and how random their survival was, they almost all seem to be possessive and protective of the experience. Their reality is far more ambiguous than that of characters in World War 1 dramas such as Journey's End. The naive enthusiasm with which they joined up is soon knocked out of them, yet there remains a kind of pride at having been there, and at having survived. Like lottery winners, they know it was all just down to luck, but deep down you sense they feel that they possessed some special quality that saw them through; that they were worthy winners.
It is an odd sensation watching this footage and there is something queasy, almost voyeuristic, about it but overall I can't see any real moral objection to it. It is a splendid film and a dignified act of remembrance. (The film is dedicated to Jackson's grandfather who fought in the war.) And it gives you a very clear view of the truth of war. It has all the usual ingredients - The Western Front, no man's land, going over the top, mustard gas, lions led by asses – but this is the only one that shows you why The War to End All Wars so completely failed to finish off anything. The lesson of the film is that we will never bloody learn. A lot of the soldiers admit to having found it a rewarding experience and being disappointed by their return to civvy street. However horrific warfare gets men and women will find a yearning to test themselves against it.
Extras.
An interview with Jackson at the National Film Theatre after the premiere conducted by Mark Kermode.
Directed by Peter Jackson. 99 mins. Available now on Digital Download, Blu-ray and DVD from Warner Bros.
When classic black and white films were first colourized there was outrage. Adding colour to Laurel and Hardy or Casablanca was, quite rightly, seen as a piece of cultural vandalism. But when Lord of The Rings director Peter Jackson did it to some First World War footage the Imperial War Museum had stashed away in its archives, everybody fell over themselves to shower it with praise. When it premiered at the London Film Festival it was treated with sombre reverence and was shipped out to schools and shown on the BBC in November as part of the commemoration of the hundred years since the armistice. World War I, and in particular the trench warfare of the Western Front, has become a fixed point in culture, the default expression of the futility and ugliness of war. The sanctity of the remembrance of the Great War will never grow old.
Making the film wasn't just a matter of adding colour: the print quality had to be restored and retimed it so it all ran at 24 frames per second. The footage was then paired with audio recordings of servicemen provided by the BBC. Jackson presents the material as a straightforward, beginning to end narrative, taking us from the excited young men in 1914 signing up to do their bit through to their bittersweet return to Britain in 1918. There is no narration, the reminiscences of 120 ex-servicemen guide us through. In this film, like most films about the conflict, this World War is all about the trenches of the western front. Other areas of conflict are available, but they don't get a look in.
The colourising doesn't appear until 25 minutes in. The choice of when to switch from colour to black and white has great symbolic significance whether it's in The Wizard of Oz or A Matter Of Life and Death. Jackson chooses to leave the scenes in Britain, of the call-up and the training, monochrome and reserves colour for the battlefield. So the fighting is seen as something apart from and above the dull plod of history that produced it. It has a vivacity the rest of the world doesn't. The quality of the restored footage varies wildly but the best of it really is extraordinary and it does give it fresh life. It's almost like raising the dead; in black and white this footage was sombre historical record – still powerful but distant. In colour, it has the intrusive intimacy of a home movie. We are peepholing back through time.
Ultimately though what makes the film isn't the pictures but the voices. Unidentified, the 120 recount their experiences with candour. You hear of the day-to-day deprivations of their lives and the feeling of being in battle, of thinking you will die at any second and what it is to kill. It is striking that however much hardship they describe, however much they rail against the futility of war and how random their survival was, they almost all seem to be possessive and protective of the experience. Their reality is far more ambiguous than that of characters in World War 1 dramas such as Journey's End. The naive enthusiasm with which they joined up is soon knocked out of them, yet there remains a kind of pride at having been there, and at having survived. Like lottery winners, they know it was all just down to luck, but deep down you sense they feel that they possessed some special quality that saw them through; that they were worthy winners.
It is an odd sensation watching this footage and there is something queasy, almost voyeuristic, about it but overall I can't see any real moral objection to it. It is a splendid film and a dignified act of remembrance. (The film is dedicated to Jackson's grandfather who fought in the war.) And it gives you a very clear view of the truth of war. It has all the usual ingredients - The Western Front, no man's land, going over the top, mustard gas, lions led by asses – but this is the only one that shows you why The War to End All Wars so completely failed to finish off anything. The lesson of the film is that we will never bloody learn. A lot of the soldiers admit to having found it a rewarding experience and being disappointed by their return to civvy street. However horrific warfare gets men and women will find a yearning to test themselves against it.
Extras.
An interview with Jackson at the National Film Theatre after the premiere conducted by Mark Kermode.
