George Harrison: Living in the Material World

Martin Scorsese has throughout his career, made several labor of love documentaries mainly on the subject of another of his passions, music. In this one his focus is on "the quiet" Beatle. Harrison was always seen as completely secondary to Lennon and McCartney. However, in this film , Scorsese shows the complexity of his character. We see his very important contribution to The Beatles, not only through his own song writing, but also the elements that essentially made many of the Lennon/McCartney compositions.

We follow him through his exploration of, particularly, Indian mysticism and philosophy, and how he integrated this into his everyday life. His contribution to the film industry is summarily gone over, from his involvement with Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1974), through to the creation of the production company, Handmade Films, that became involved in some of the great British films of the 1980's.

What is apparent throughout the film is Scorsese's clear love of the music. Using still photographs, there are many sections that fill the three and a half hours with Harrison's songs. Scorsese uses these throughout, and presents them chronologically, so that we are able to witness the evolution of Harrison's song writing.

A clear documentary made by someone passionate about the subject, the film paints a picture of a very interesting man, who lived through much change around and within himself. This is a very well researched, well constructed story, and whilst long, does not seem that way whilst viewing.

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I liked this documentary, but it was just hundreds of bits of film footage and interviews without any explanation. Even a little bit would have been nice.

As a casual fan of the Beatles, some explanation, such as the death of Stuart Sutcliffe and why Pete Best left the band would have been good. Instead, we have pictures of five Beatles, and then someone says that John Lennon was affected by the death of Stuart Sutcliffe, and then a clip of the Beatles with Ringo Starr. No information given about Sutcliffe or Best.

No doubt most fans know the stories, but I don't. Lots of good clips are spliced together, but it seems choppy sometimes. Like Claus Voorman and his wife Astrid are interviewed about the early Beatles, and how they were providing them with food, etc., then they just disappear. A lot of loose ends. I guess after you watch this documentary, you can read some books about the Beatles?

I enjoyed all the information and interviews, but compared to other documentaries, this one lacked a narrative that connected all the clips/photos/interviews together in a timeline.

George Harrison: Living in a Material World (2011)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Considering some of the movies that director Martin Scorsese has made you'd think that he'd be the wrong person to tell the life story of George Harrison but after viewing this mammoth documentary it's easy to see why the two went together. This documentary runs 203-mintues so it's extremely wrong but it covers just about everything you'd want to know about Harrison. We start off with his brothers talking about what type of kid he was and then we move to his audition for what would become The Beatles. From here we see the bands rise and fall as well as how Harrison decided to go solo with All Things Must Pass. He experiments with drugs are well documentary as is the influence Indian music had on him. The Bangladesh concert, his Traveling Wilburys days and his comeback are also discussed before we get to the 1999 home invasion attack as well as his fight with cancer. Among those interviewed are Harrison's widow Olivia, Terry Gilliam, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Tom Petty, Eric Idle, George Martin, Eric Clapton, Yoko Ono, Ravi Shankar and Phil Spector among many others. With such a long running time I went into the film a little worried that there was just going to be too much but I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly the film went by as it certainly doesn't feel over three hours. What works so well is that there's a clear direction in all the material and it appears that Scorsese wanted to get across that Harrison was constantly searching for something that he could probably only find in death. It's clear from those interviewed that Harrison wanted to experience as much as he can and there's a lot of talk about him preparing himself for death and he wanting to be prepared for when he eventually left his body. I found all of this to be quite fascinating and the real master work from Scorsese comes towards the very end. We get a pretty disturbing story of Harrison being attacked in his home, which his widow tells in such a way that you can't help but feel creeped out. Everyone knows that Harrison did eventually die from cancer but I won't ruin how this film ends but lets just say that it's quite powerful. I think the weakest part of the film is some of the stuff dealing with The Beatles simply because we've seen it so many times before. The first part of the film runs 94-minutes and goes up to just before the Beatles broke up. Part two clocks in just under two-hours and goes from the break-up to Harrison's death and I think this portion of the documentary is the best. Either way, fans are certainly going to enjoy all the concert footage, rare photos, the interviews and of course Harrison gets to speak his own words with some old interviews.

I have never made a secret of the fact that I am a fan of the Beatles, always have been and always will be. So when I heard that Martin Scorsese was making a documentary about the life of George Harrison you can guess I was a tad more than interested. Knowing it was very unlikely to air at my local cinema, I was resigned to either waiting for the DVD release or for it to air on TV in about a years' time. Imagine my surprise when those nice people at the BBC aired it over the weekend of November 12th/13th 2011! Here's a bit about it before I give you my thoughts.

Using archive footage, much of which I had never seen before, and interviews with his friends and family, we are taken through the ups and downs of the life and times of this quiet guitar player from Liverpool. From the early days of the Beatles, through to their demise in the late 60's and then on through his solo career. We hear about how he came to finance a Monty Python film, his love of Indian mysticism, his love of motorsport and the many many friends he made along the way. How he formed a little group called The Traveling Wilburys and how they brought him a little success later in his career. It goes right up to his death from cancer in 2001.

It's a very touching and heartfelt tribute to a man who had an impact on so many lives whether it be through his music or in some other way. I must say I enjoyed it very much, although at just short of three and a half hours, it is pretty long! It's beautifully put together with just about the right mix of archive footage intercut with interviews. Some of the people who appear are; several Pythons, John Lennon (archive footage), Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Georges' wife, Olivia and his son, Dhani (who really looks like him), Eric Clapton, Ravi Shankar, Tom Petty and Phil Spector. At some stage I will definitely invest in the DVD of this documentary, it's really worth a look for any Beatles fan, or any fan of music for that matter… Just be warned that despite a 'U' certificate, there is a little swearing. Over all… Highly Recommended (but VERY long).

My score: 9.2/10 IMDb Score: 8.3/10 (based on 722 votes at the time of going to press).

Why did Martin Scorsese decide to make a film about George Harrison? Why did he decide to make a film about the Dalai Lama? Or The Age of Innocence? While this is another documentary about a rock-star icon, following along from Scorsese's own The Last Waltz, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and Shine a Light, it's closest in style and tone to the Dylan doc, as a profile of a man of his time and how he lived through it.

Unlike Dylan, who is a mystery even to the most curious of fans (or just one of the more obnoxious, depends how you look at it), George Harrison seems to be, from accounts and interviews, to be a man of spiritual and artistic integrity who had various concerns and ideas, and he expressed them throughout his life - or, if not in the recording studio or as a producer of films, then with his garden. One may not be able to find the link between the sarcastic (if 'quiet') kid from A Hard Day's Night with an old man in a garden (or for that matter the old man having to defend his life against a burglar, as he did, in 1999), but it's all here.

I may not have found Harrison quite as enlightening as Bob Dylan, but should he be? Maybe in his own simple way though Scorsese finds a more direct path or personal link to him through the spiritual side. Harrison was someone who found through the Maharishi, Indian music, transcendental meditation, some kind of path through the noise of Western civilization.

The clash is what's interesting here, and Scorsese knows it too. While the director is fascinated with BIG emotions in his films (see anything with De Niro for more on that), he's also fascinated how someone operates with a calm demeanor on the surface burning with emotion underneath. Harrison was the guitarist for the Beatles and then when the break-up happened, he had to break-off and find another way. He was still a pop star, and his first solo album, the great 'All Things Must Pass' went into the top ten of the charts. But how did he reconcile a working class British-Liverpool upbringing with the teachings of Haria Krishna?

Of course, the first hour of this massive three 1/2 hour films are dedicated to him and the Beatles, and it's wonderful to see the footage, hear the songs, find out some details about the songs Harrison wrote for the group (i.e. the first song he ever wrote, 'If I Needed Someone'). Then the second part is about the spiritual search, or what's close to it, mixed with the start of the solo career (and of course some of the famous tales of romantic highs and lows via Patti and Eric Clapton are included).

There's a section for the film-part of his career, where as a man of faith, though not exactly (it's complicated you see) he helped pay "the most ever anyone's paid for a movie ticket" for Monty Python's Life of Brian. And then about his gardening, his second wife Olivia (and - kind of a shock to me - the candor which Olivia, who was a producer on the film and wrote the book spin-off of the film, talks about Harrison's infidelities in their marriage, something I really admired), and other things like friendships, the burglary in 1999, and his untimely passing from cancer.

It wouldn't be a Scorsese movie without music, and hey, it's George Harrison so there's lots of good stuff here (sadly, for me, no 'I Got My Mind Set on You'), and there's the director via editor David Tedeschi's marvelous way of navigating the story with music. Watch the opening and how 'All Things Must Pass' goes over the WW2 footage, then mixed in with some of the more traditional music of the 1940's period to see some of the brilliance with which Scorsese does this. And the interviews are mostly illuminating and nice, once or twice piling on the adulation (perhaps as one might expect) while still giving some moments for the quirks Harrison had - such as a story Tom Petty tells about ukuleles - and some of his flaws as a man and artist.

I'm not sure if for fans the film will shine a whole lot of new light, though for newcomers it should provide the bulk of know-how. What's great about the film ultimately is the thread of the story, and how the filmmaker is not afraid to jump around, or jump ahead, and expect the audience to keep up. It's not as straight-thru as, say, The Beatles Anthology. We're seeing a life in various dimensions, time-spans, and it's as if not more post-modern than the Dylan doc. It's joyous, meditative, somber, happy, funny, a little daft and a little less than perfect. I can't wait to revisit the life and work.