Second, this doc is different. It’s made by Peter Jackson of Lord of the
Rings and King Kong 2005 fame.
He’s a serious WWI buff who has a huge collection of memorabilia like
military outfits, weapons and period magazines (all of which were used as
research materials). When he was given
the chance to put together this film he jumped at it. He wasn’t given any kind of parameters as to
what should be included or what type of movie to make at all. Jackson spent a full year just sorting
through the hundreds and hundreds of hours of film and audio.
And after hearing interviews of British vets done in the
50’s and 60’s it became evident that they should be telling the story. So the entire narrative is made up of clips
of first hand accounts of real soldiers that were there. Their memories and stories are a treasure
trove of insight. We start with how some
heard about the war being declared and how a helluva lot of them were underage
when they signed up but lied and got in anyway.
Then we learn what training camp was like with drill instructors barking
at you and hiking for dozens of miles on end.
Finally we move to the western front in France where the bulk of the
picture is spent. The soldiers’ accounts
range from dispiriting, to humorous, to disgusting, to cordial to absolutely
fucking terrifying. Trench life, battle
and all the dreary hours and days in between are recounted in stunning detail.
To go along with the unique narration Jackson meticulously
restored footage from the war. Scenes
were brightened, darkened, jitteriness was removed, the speed of everything was
adjusted to make it look like how it’s supposed to in real life instead of
everyone scurrying around like wind up toys, and all of the western front
footage was colorized and zoomed in slightly so it could be viewed in
widescreen. When you combine all these techniques
the results are in-fuckin’-sane. My jaw
dropped to the point where I thought for a minute that Jackson shot modern day
recreations. But I soon realized no, I’m
watching the actual shit from like 1914-1918.
Jackson did add sound effects to tie the whole thing together and that’s
the final piece that puts it over the top.
It’s synced perfectly with the visuals so it truly is like you’re
stepping back in time. Amazing.
Jackson was a stickler for accuracy too. For example there’s a part where a superior
is reading a speech to his men and Jackson wanted audio to go with it. So they found the boiler plate speech that
was being circulated among the troops at the time, which regiment was in their specific
shot, what part of Britain they were from and got someone from that region to
recite the speech so the accent would be appropriate. Jesus.
Holy shit guys I cannot recommend this enough. Everything about this project is mind
blowing. Considering the age and
generally poor condition all the footage was in Jackson and his team put
together probably the most well restored pieces of film in existence. Not only that but they had the brilliant idea
of letting the soldiers involved in the war tell their stories themselves. It’s incredibly compelling because this isn’t
an overview of the entire war or even one major battle but instead the average
(British) grunt’s tale. It’s what they
ate, how they dealt with boredom, what the living conditions were like, how
they interacted with enemy soldiers and etc.
This indispensable minutiae paints a vivid and humanizing picture of The
Great War. This thing was comprised of
people and this is what it was like day to day and how they coped.
You gotta see this.
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