They Shall Not Grow Old

source: They Shall Not Grow Old

The story of the Great War on the western front is told by way of archive footage and stills to a soundtrack of commentary by veterans. There have been archive footage documentaries before, but none quite like this. After 20 minutes of what we have come to expect - monochrome flickery hand-cranked silent footage, scratched, grainy, in 4:3 ratio - the quality of Peter Jackson's estoration is revealed as a single shot is transformed before our eyes. One expects the scratches, dirt and streaks to have been removed. But the speed irregularities resulting from hand-cranking simply aren't there, the images are pin-sharp, and the colorisation is so good that you would never imagine that these images were originally black and white. The film looks modern and professionally shot. Where film has been dubbed, this has been carried out with equal care: lip-synching is sensitive and accurate. When you take the conversion of a dated original into a credible contemporary standard which complements the often devastating but matter-of-fact recollections of 150 men who were in the middle of it, this brings this conflict into focus with more immediacy than anything I have seen or heard before. A remarkable experience.

I was very surprised when I watched "They Shall Not Grow Old" as I think my hopes were set way too high. Instead of seeing amazingly restored archival footage, the whole thing looked much like colorized WWI documentaries I'd seen on television already. Now I am not saying the film was bad....but it wasn't the amazingly restored masterpiece I heard it had been. Yes, Peter Jackson and his team did a ton of work on the film and it is impressive...but not as impressive as I'd hoped. As for the film itself, it consists of no narration--just snippets from hundreds of different soldiers' accounts of the war. Then, it was all strung together with many, many, many short snippets. I personally would have probably enjoyed less snippets and more lengthy accounts of the war as the style film made it seem a bit choppy and disconnected. Overall, not a bad film at all but one that didn't leave me as blown away as I expected from a BAFTA-nominated documentary. Good...not great. By the way, while sitting and watching all this became a bit numbing, this would be a great film to show at a history museum--perhaps to play as you walked around the museum or perhaps cut into snippets that play as you walk about the place.

My grandfather was a bugler and gassed at Passchendaele. I have only seen black and white photos of him and he died long after the Great War, but before I was born. Like most British people of my age I have a certain image of WW1 influenced by Wilfred Owen and Blackadder. Peter Jackson has done a truly remarkable thing and transported me back in time. I found myself laughing, feeling sadness and above all a huge sense of identification with the ordinary lads and men who made up the British forces in this terrible war. To see green grass, red poppies and ordinary men speaking like I do, but from 100 years ago, was as moving as anything I can ever remember watching in a film. The understated, conversational acknowledgement of the overall sense of anticlimax at the end of the war was as revelatory as it was honest. It spoke more eloquently about the pompousity of politicians and true feelings of the common man than a thousand poems or polemics ever could. The voices I heard and the images of those men will stay with me. Well done Peter Jackson for creating an instant classic.

Absolutely great film about an emotive subject with good treatment

This movie made me think about my life in an entirely different context. It made me realise how incredibly fortunate I am to be able to switch the heating on when it gets a bit cold, or climb into bed after a long day at work. Boys, pretending to be old enough so they could fight for our freedom? It makes me cringe at the way we live our lives today. Truly brave men and we should be forever thankful. A great tribute by Peter Jackson.

To be sure, the French solder was brave, they faced the onslaught right into their country. The American WWI soldier was competent and the US played an important part in supplying the Allies and then in delivering the message that the Central Powers could not continue. The average German and central powers soldier had no choice in the matter. So, yes, this was a complex war like all wars. But there simply is no doubt that key factor in saving Europe in this war was the British solder. He was well trained, well equipped, stoically handled the challenges, and fought and won an extremely important war. Nowadays our kids are taught this war had no right and wrong side. That simply is not true. No matter how imperfect some aspects of the motives or poltical systems of the allies were, the choice was between enlightened forward looking democracies such as Britain and France, and eventually the US, and an utterly retrograde Germany. for Germany to have won and controlled Europe would have been a setback of huge proportions. In "They Shall Not Grow Old," Peter Jackson really brings the WWI Tommy to life with a nod to the professional British veteran solder at the beginning of the war that was worth ten German soldiers, to the entire generation of young, including very young solders that were the second echelon into the war but did the bulk of the fighting. The colorization and dubbing create a reality and presences that is in sharp contrast from the heretofore abstract and distant black and white soundless film clips that have until now have filtered and made that war less visceral, and less human Frankly not since Ken Burns "Civil War" has there been such innovation in war documentary

This is an extraordinary film. Like most movies it'll pull at your emotions, one minute you're laughing, the next scared, the next the tears will be welling up. Most of us will have seen grainy footage of WW1. The war started over a 100 years ago, and It's the age of the footage, and the jerkyness of the speed of the film that help us think of this particular war as a distant non relevant war. This film changes all of that, and helps bring us into the lives of the soldiers that took part. The film starts in black and white and in a small box in the centre of the screen. As it continues the footage gets clearer, and the screen larger until the first transition into beautifully clear colour footage that fills the cinema screen. This first transition took my breath away it is just so good. The film gradually draws us in, until we are right there, in the trenches with the British and Germans as they fight each other. We then experience the sight and sounds of this horrendous war in the same way as the participants. You even hear the words they spoke while being filmed, Peter Jackson explaned in the Q&A that he used professional lip readers to find out what was said, and actors synced the words to what was being said on screen. There is no narrator, but you do hear the voices of those that took part in the war who were interviewed in the 1960's and 70's, these snippets are sometimes funny, and sometime heartbreakingly sad. The film draws to an end by returning to black and white, and as the screen starts to shrink back to the original size, we are slowly taken away from the horrors of the trenches. This movie was just brilliant, and lovingly created by Peter Jackson and his team. Our screening was a one off, shown at the same time as the premier in London and included an interview with the director. If you do get the chance go and see in a cinema, you won't be disappointed.

The narrative of the film being told exclusively through oral history of soldiers of WWI taken during the 60's and 70's ensures that it had a relevance to today's audience. The masterpiece of the film is the transformation of 13-17 frames per second of 1914-18 film to 24 frames per second for today. This, along with the cleaning and digitisation, of the film suddenly brings the film alive. When colour is added you are virtually there 'at the front'! This can be seen to be the downside of the whole process. In the bringing to life of the old films have we made it Hollywoodesque? This is a slight criticism of a film that enables you to see the vast waste of life that the war was. It does need to be told as it is so pivotal, socially and politically, to the rest of the twentieth century.

Utterly haunting movie of life on the western front in WW1. Peter Jackson has thrown some serious computer firepower to bring these soldiers back to life.You will have never seen anything quite like this before.Breathtaking in many parts!

Jackson's remarkable looking documentary is an amalgam of archive footage (much of it originally staged for the 1916 film 'The Battle of the Somme'), with only a tiny amount of actual battle footage given the early nature of film cameras in those days, plus the more moving sight of several of the soldiers staring and smiling into camera, and thanks to skillful lip-reading, speaking through interpreted voices. The slowing down to our standard 24fps and adding of voices is beautifully touching. I personally don't know if it was essential to colourise as some of the greys in the originals are still visible, when uncolourised black and white footage is still just as immediate (the irony is that so many war films nowadays are drained of colour anyway.) Nonetheless, it is a vivid impression of life on the Western Front that Jackson helps to create, and remains refreshingly objective to its time, reflecting the general pro-war feelings at the beginning in 1914, and through carefully selected testimonies of the many hundreds of soldiers, unfolds the story of a kind of war that had never been seen before, or hopefully never will be again. Sadly humanity never learns its lesson, as the "war to end all wars" is now better known as World War I - all the more reason for history to remind us. You watch this film, and in some of its more harrowing scenes you can see all the visual influence that Jackson drew upon for his Lord of the Rings trilogy. He dedicated this film to his grandfather who served in the war, and watching it , on the day after my own great grandfather's birthday (who also served in WWI), it was a thought provoking moment that stayed with me for a few hours after.