Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old is a visceral, deeply moving reminder of things that mustn't be forgotten.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
-- Laurence Binyon

Yesterday we made the trek to one of those garish shopping meccas amid the sprawl of Louisville's eastern suburbs (as they're all equally depressing, I'm never able to remember the exact name of the particular atrocity) to view They Shall Not Grow Old, Peter Jackson's incredible World War I documentary film.

I managed to avoid shedding a tear until the very last bit of the closing credits, where it was written "Filmed on location on the Western Front, 1914-1918." I'm not sure why this simple phrase made me cry, but it did. It may have been the cumulative effect of the voices and visuals; it was so long ago, and they're all ghosts now.

Perhaps Jackson's greatest achievement with this innovative documentary film is to let the restored images and voice-overs tell the story, uncluttered by maps and grand strategies. For instance, have you ever wondered how latrines worked on the front lines? It was elegantly simple, in fact.

To me, the film humanizes the experience of soldiers who we've come to view with some justification as little more than cannon fodder.

It covers the four years in one story arc with the voice-over anecdotes telling of the initial excitement of signing up, the harsh realities of training, shipping out, then finding yourself in a muddy hole combating lice, rats, gas, dysentery, trench-foot, trench-fever, frostbite, the stench of death and, occasionally, the enemy a rifle shot away. The film doesn’t flinch from showing the carnage.

At the end, an added segment finds Jackson explaining how his team managed to do what they did, and for many reviewers, the wizardry involved must be examined; colorization is only a small part of this critique, which I feel is completely justified. You can follow the links below to indulge in it.

However, the historian in me sees They Shall Not Grow Old as an invaluable teaching tool, full stop. A century later, the imperative is people understanding how the far-off Great War continues to impact our lives. As one small example, consider the way boundary lines in the Middle East were drawn at war's end.

By all means, let's revel in the arguments of authenticity implicit in Jackson's directorial decision-making. But let's not take our eyes off the prize.

‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ Review: World War I, in Living Color, by Ben Kenigsberg (NYT)

Peter Jackson's WWI film is a portal into the past, by Russell Baillie (New Zealand Listener)

A Few Thoughts on the Authenticity of Peter Jackson’s “They Shall Not Grow Old” by Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker)

They Shall Not Grow Old review – Peter Jackson's electrifying journey into the first world war trenches, by Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian)

Previously:

Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old: "A visually staggering thought experiment; an immersive deep-dive into what it was like for ordinary British soldiers on the western front."

Apocalypse: Never-Ending War: "A film about the years of fragile peace that followed the Fist World War, the collapse of empires, and the fateful rise of totalitarianism."

Apocalypse: Never-Ending War: "A film about the years of fragile peace that followed the Fist World War, the collapse of empires, and the fateful rise of totalitarianism."

It comes as no surprise when two more documentaries about the Great War come through the YouTube pipeline and fascinate me.

The films are excellent, and the production is a joint venture between Canadian and French filmmakers (here's the link for the Canadian series home page), as broadcast and posted at YouTube by Deutsche Welle.

There have been two of these series about World War I, both using colorized archival footage.

Apocalypse World War I
1914-1918 (5 x 52’)

Apocalypse Never-Ending War
1918-1929 (2 x 45’)

I need to catch up on the first series. Meanwhile, here's the synopsis of the second, via Deutsche Welle.

Apocalypse - Never-Ending War 1918 - 1929

"Apocalypse: Never-Ending War" tells the story of the years of fragile peace that followed the Fist World War, the collapse of empires, and the fateful rise of totalitarianism. Years that foretell the coming of another disastrous war. For four years, from 1914-1918, the world seemed hellbent on total self-annihilation. The First World War was an apocalyptic war that claimed over 50 million lives, civilian and military. Those who survive come to realize the world of the past century has now disappeared into an abyss of suffering. Millions of soldiers, the shell-shocked, the amputees, the disabled, will spend the rest of their lives trying to make sense of their years in hell. Parents are in despair at the loss of their children, families destroyed, millions of widows and orphans left to survive any way they can. In 1919 at Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and in 1920 at Trianon, the victors forge peace treaties that they claim will restore balance. But those who have pinned their hopes on a transition from war to universal peace are to be deeply disappointed. Hatred, fear, and resentment re-emerge from the depths of societies traumatized by war and the tumultuous transformation that results from the world’s map being re-drawn. The vanquished, facing terrible reparations, look for promises of hope, stability and order, even at the cost of personal freedom. The climate is ripe for the emergence of authoritarian forces, exacerbating ethnic nationalism, and opening doors to the worst of human nature. Extreme ideologies take root in Germany and Italy, and spread from there.

I've already mentioned the latest sensation for documentary enthusiasts like me.

Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old: "A visually staggering thought experiment; an immersive deep-dive into what it was like for ordinary British soldiers on the western front."

The Economist uses precisely the right word: immediacy.

“They Shall Not Grow Old” brings archive footage to stirring life, by Prospero (The Economist)

The film applies modern production techniques to old film to achieve something poppies and pageantry cannot: immediacy

 ... The attention to detail was painstaking, and almost five years in the making. Mr Jackson trawled through hundreds of hours of video and audio footage, most of it collected by the BBC for their documentary “The Great War” (1964). Once these were stitched together into a storyline, each frame was colourised and digitally restored. Computer programs helped to move the video from the ten to 18 frames per second (fps) at which it was shot to the modern rate of 24 fps, doing away with the “Charlie Chaplin effect” (the jerky, disjointed movement that characterises old film). Forensic lip-readers were hired to work out what soldiers might be saying, and their words were voiced by actors.

Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old: "A visually staggering thought experiment; an immersive deep-dive into what it was like for ordinary British soldiers on the western front."

I find this utterly fascinating. There have been images of the period captured in rare, early color film, and there has been colorization of film.

However, this is a whole new level.

They Shall Not Grow Old review – Peter Jackson's electrifying journey into the first world war trenches, by Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian)

Jackson has restored, colourised and added voices to footage of the western front, bringing the soldiers unforgettably back to life

To mark the centenary of the first world war’s end, Peter Jackson has created a visually staggering thought experiment; an immersive deep-dive into what it was like for ordinary British soldiers on the western front. This he has done using state-of-the-art digital technology to restore flickery old black-and-white archive footage of the servicemen’s life in training and in the trenches. He has colourised it, sharpened it, put it in 3D and, as well as using diaries and letters for narrative voiceover, he has used lip-readers to help dub in what the men are actually saying.

The effect is electrifying. The soldiers are returned to an eerie, hyperreal kind of life in front of our eyes, like ghosts or figures summoned up in a seance. The faces are unforgettable.

Watching this, I understood how the world wars of the 20th century are said to have inspired surrealism. Thirty or so years ago, there was a debate in film circles about the sacrilege of colourising classic black-and-white movies. This is different. The colourisation effect is artificial, as is 3D (as is monochrome, too, of course), and the painterly approximation of reality presents a challenge to what you consider “real” on film. After a few minutes, I realised that force of cultural habit was causing me to doubt what I was seeing, because colour means modern. The colourisation, and everything else, is a kind of alienation shock tactic as well as a means of enfolding you in the experience. It is an indirect way of reminding you that this really did happen to people like you and me ...