Peter Jackson brings to life WW1 footage in new film. They Shall Not Grow Old.

Discussion in 'Prewar' started by Clint_NZ, Jan 23, 2018.

  1. Incredibledisc

    Incredibledisc Well-Known Member

    Had a look on iplayer. There is still a selection of interviews from The Great War on there:

    The Great War Interviews, 1. Frank Brent: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01tcxg0
    The Great War Interviews, 2. Katie Morter: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01tcxp4
    The Great War Interviews, 3. Henry Williamson: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01tcyg5
    The Great War Interviews, 4. Cecil Arthur Lewis: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01tczfx
    The Great War Interviews, 5. Stefan Westmann: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01tczvt
    The Great War Interviews, 6. Charles Carrington: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01td104
    The Great War Interviews, 7. Mabel Lethbridge: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01td29c
    The Great War Interviews, 8. John Willis Palmer: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01td2np
    The Great War Interviews, 9. Edward Glendinning: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01td39d
    The Great War Interviews, 10. Horace Leslie Birks: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01td4l4
    The Great War Interviews, 11. Richard Henry Tobin: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01tdbzp
    The Great War Interviews, 12. Edward Louis Spears: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01tdcb7
    The Great War Interviews, 13. Norman Macmillan: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01tdcrk
     
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  2. hucks216

    hucks216 Member

    Just a quick heads-up but the recently released film project by director Peter Jackson that has colourised WW-1 film is being shown on BBC2 on Sunday 11th November at 2130.
     
  3. jamesmurrow

    jamesmurrow Senior Member

    Digitally remastered images of WW1, from IWM archives by Peter Jackson, should prove very interesting.
    BBC 2, Sunday 11/11 at 2130 hours [9.30pm]
     
  4. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Just watched it with my two teenage boys. Some bits worked really well others were a bit iffy. Nice surprise at the end in the credits , one of the voices was my old chum Horace Calvert.
     
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  5. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    It worked for me, although once or twice I found the colours a little odd....but it kept me watching and listening to the real stars, those wonderful voices.

    Obviously, it's been very tightly edited but the absence of the self-aggrandising idiots who populate the world of television made it believable in a manner that I haven't experienced for a long time.
     
  6. SDP

    SDP Incurable Cometoholic

    It worked really well in my mind. Just a pity that it was all Western Front with no Navy, Air or other overseas locations and no film from the Axis side.
     
  7. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    I'm glad that it didn't try to cover too much. It seemed to give a depth that most documentaries lack. I quite enjoy watching an hour and a half on a single subject. Perhaps he could cover another aspect for next year....or the 1940 Campaign for the 80th anniversary in 2020 :)
     
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  8. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I watched the footage on BBC yesterday evening and was most impressed.

    This was like no war that I have ever been in and it really touched me, particularly the constant snatches of conversation
    that exactly matched what we were viewing.

    I tried to think of episodes that i had experienced myself during my time abroad in WW2 and the nearest I came to it was my time at Cassino. BBC - WW2 People's War - Monte Cassino, March to May 1944

    There, we lived in appalling conditions but never in trenches, only in what the Americans referred to as foxholes and I vividly remember how we cut ledges inside them to hold our personal kit

    I shall not delete this recording but instead will play it any time I'm feeling sorry for myself !

    Ron
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2018
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  9. 51highland

    51highland Very Senior Member

    Really impressed. I can see better now about what my Father always said, " at least we didn't suffer like the poor buggers in the first war"
     
  10. SteveDee

    SteveDee Well-Known Member

    I'm very glad that I stayed up, well beyond my normal bedtime, to watch this. It worked for me too.

    In some ways I wish it hadn't had all those pre-release reviews emphasising how it was made. It would have been even better just to have watched it (rather like Attenborough's "Dynasties") and then have seen a short "how it was made" section at the end. The film speed and colourisation enhancements were not the point of the film, they were simply [very good] enhancements to some of the original material.

    Today it arrives in our nations schools. I know the local school (where I use to work part time) will be running it on a loop on large screens in reception areas, dotted around the building. I doubt this in itself will have much affect. What's probably needed is an edited 30 minute version and/or a series of bite sized clips that Humanities can work into lessons. Maybe a few young people will sit down and watch it at home on iPlayer with parents/grandparents.

    I don't know how you really bring to life the events of 100+ years ago, but this is byfar the best attempt I've seen. In the dreadful war films that I saw as a youngster, soldiers only seemed to have clean deaths; either "Aaaaarh!" and they were dead, or they would clutch a little hole in their chest and survive just long enough to say "Tell Gladys I love...".

    Back then, I would never have suspected that soldiers would simply slip from muddy board-walks into the mud and perish, or that they would be run-over by our own tanks, because they were unable to drag their injured bodies out of its path.

    During the North African campaign following Operation Torch, a London newspaper reported that the Americans had been unprepared for battle, “...misled by the stupidity of Hollywood’s war films...”. And I think one or two of the "voices" last night commented that there was no point discussing WW1 with people back home, because they couldn't understand what it was like.
     
  11. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Scale modeling guy giving a very positive review. Movie comments begin at 4:00 mark

     
  12. Incredibledisc

    Incredibledisc Well-Known Member

    Just to pick up your point about bite sized clips - the dvd sent out to schools came with a little credit card size data drive which has lots of educational material for schools along with several thematically arranged clips from the documentary intended for use in lessons.
     
  13. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    I am watching this right now and I suppose I have distracted myself - I've paused it - but having read Dick Taylor's Warpaint books I'm not sure who they consulted for the tank colours. I am given to understand that the standard colour of tanks was initially grey, and then brown. And the multi colour scheme they showed was wrong, if Taylor's book is correct.
     
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  14. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Lots of photos in Trevor Pidgeon's book "The Tanks at Flers" with tanks in dispruptive camo. I think Sept 1916 was only time they were painted like that.
    Tanks at Flers page119.jpg
    Plenty of camo painted Mk 1 on IWM site.
    File:Mark I series tank.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

    [​IMG]
     
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  15. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Sorry, I didn't mean the pattern, I meant the colours in the pattern. In the film I think it was all greens and yellows, wasn't it?

    In Dick Taylor's book he describes how Lt Col Solomon painted 'Mother' in the scheme "that was described as being like 'an impressionist landscape'. It appeared to use at least four colours, although what these were is difficult to interpret from the original photographs, but a fair guess would suggest Pink/Ochre[11], Grass Green, Brown and either dark Brown or Black, over a base coat of Works Grey. Each tank crew was then ordered to copy this scheme" Footnote 11 reads: this has been described as 'pink' and 'bilous pink', though this is unlikely - a pinkish hue possibly, but surely not baby pink!"

    He goes on to describe how apparently an order was given in France to tone down or repaint the vehicles in a simplified scheme of "Ochre, Grey, Brown and Green.as the likely colours".

    The brown eventually settled on seems to have been a choice based on the fact that the tanks got covered in mud anyway. I didn't see anything in Warpaint to suggest that they were painted in a strong green like we saw in the movie.

    This is really all just a technical niggle about a very powerful film.
     
  16. Grasmere

    Grasmere Well-Known Member

    I don't think it matters that the title refers to a WW2 poem. It was a powerful account of life at the front in WW1, and millions of people didn't come home. Worth watching.
     
  17. timuk

    timuk Well-Known Member

    ??????
    The title comes from 'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon written in 1914.

    Tim
     
  18. Grasmere

    Grasmere Well-Known Member

    Of course, sorry, you are right.
     
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  19. Markyboy

    Markyboy Member

    I thought this was stunning. The part when it goes from black and white and into colour blew me away. Very powerful, really bringing the people to life.
     
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