Another
Awesome Documentary and Those Oscar Nominations
They
Shall Not Grow Old (New Zealand/UK https://www.theyshallnotgrowold.film/)
New
Zealand director Peter Jackson is best known for the fictional Lord of the
Rings trilogy. But it’s his longtime
interest in military history that has led to this amazing work, released during
the centenary of the armistice that ended the First World War and dedicated to
a grandfather who served in the British army from 1910-1919. On January 21 I braved extreme windchills to
see it on the big screen, a one-day only showing at Cineplex theatres in
Canada.
The
painstaking production drew from some 100 hours of archival footage originally
shot during the war itself, and 600 hours of audio recordings by WWI veterans
made in the 1960s and 1970s. These voices of firsthand experience provide all
the narration. Given the variable
quality of extant archival images, their lack of sound, different frame-rate film
speeds, etc., Jackson’s team had to overcome a number of technical challenges,
which he describes in detail in an extended commentary following the closing
credits. That includes the decision to
apply a meticulous colourization process to some of the footage which brings
the scenes more intensely and fully to life before our eyes. For more analysis
see: https://filmmakermagazine.com/106589-the-documentary-masterpiece-that-is-peter-jacksons-they-shall-not-grow-old/#.XEdweFxKiM9.
The
results are, in a word, awesome. The
narrative, focused on British infantry troops, proceeds chronologically through
the phases of the war. Watching the
early views of eager fresh faces in training one wonders how few will survive
four years hence. The film’s first part looks
back to historic newsreel black-and-white images, sometimes juxtaposed beneath
the garish colours of wartime propaganda posters. Then the view expands to strikingly
immersive full-screen colour. In the remainder of the film Jackson also
occasionally uses pixilated black-and-white stills from his collection of
wartime propaganda magazines.
Any romantic
notions of battle are quickly disabused by the ensuing devastation and horrors
of trench warfare along the Western front.
Nothing is spared: the muck and the blood, total lack of hygiene and
privacy (the lice and the rats), decaying corpses of men and horses, poison
gas, barbed wire and blasted no-man’s land.
But amid the carnage there is also a certain camaraderie among ordinary
soldiers, extended even to captured German prisoners. When the armistice is announced there is
subdued relief, no sense of celebration among the men who will return to mass
unemployment and a civilian society that little understands and wants to
forget.
The
documentary does not attempt to offer a complete picture of the so-called Great
War. Staying with the situation of
British facing German foot soldiers, it includes the role of artillery and
early motorized tanks but not that of the airforce or navy, or the role of
colonial troops and those of other nations.
In his commentary Jackson also alludes to the important role of women in
wartime production on the home front as a subject beyond the scope of his
film. What They Shall Not Grow Old does accomplish, and brilliantly so, is to
recall with unmatched realism and immediacy the experiences of enlisted men
during that cataclysmic conflict a century ago.
A
Those
2019 Oscar nominations
First a word about the Golden Globes
which I don’t take too seriously. It was
ridiculous for the musical biopic Bohemian
Rhapsody to win “best drama” (though I don’t think it’s as bad as many
critics lament) while Vice was put in
the “musical or comedy” category (it was neither). Globe wins for Rhapsody and for Green Book (another controversial choice) seem to have benefited
their Oscar prospects with best-picture nominations.
The
egregious omission on the best picture list is Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk, superior to
either of the above. The inclusion of Black Panther, the first superhero movie
to make it into this category, is obviously a nod to its theme of Black
empowerment and box-office popularity. I
would have loved to see The Rider in
there (my #2 film of 2018, it was named best film by the U.S. National Society
of Film Critics), but it’s a small independent so had no chance. The best news is to see Roma, a genuine masterwork, nominated for both best picture and
best foreign-language film, tied for a leading 10 nominations with The
Favourite, also one of my best. Roma
has to be a prohibitive favorite in the foreign-language category. For best picture its strongest competition
may be the star-heavy A Star is Born. Nicest surprise is to see the unknown Yalitza
Aparicio get nominated as lead actress for Roma,
whose director Alfonso Cuarón has a good chance in the best director category.
Biggest
omission in the lead actor category is Ethan Hawke who topped most critics’
polls for his performance in First Reformed,
though its director Paul Schrader did get a nomination for original screenplay.
Watch
for more thoughts on what or who should win and will win in the various
categories closer to the February 24 awards ceremony.
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