{"id":10031,"date":"2019-01-16T20:41:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T01:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=10031"},"modified":"2019-01-16T20:49:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T01:49:37","slug":"they-shall-not-grow-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/01\/16\/they-shall-not-grow-old\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They Shall Not Grow Old\u2019\u2014Peter Jackson\u2019s Time Machine Back To World War I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Jackson\u2019s documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old,\u201d which is getting a limited theatrical run in Boston beginning Feb. 1, is a time machine back to the First World War. The film begins with black and white vintage footage from the war of young, White British men signing up and entering training and boarding ships to France. Once they land on the continent, the footage shifts to color\u2014like \u201cThe Wizard of Oz\u201d\u2014magically transporting us to the splintered trees, the pulverized fields, the muddy trenches of the war\u2019s western front. Kablam!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IrabKK9Bhds\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Britain\u2019s Imperial War Museum invited Jackson\u2014the director of \u201cThe Lord of the Rings\u201d trilogy and other special-effects-filled fantasy war epics\u2014to mine their World War I footage to create a documentary to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the war\u2019s end.<\/p>\n<p>Movie cameras in the 1910s were generally hand-cranked, causing variations in speed that make everyone appear to be madly skittering around. Jackson\u2019s team stabilized the footage and corrected its speed. \u201cWhen you get that speed spot on it suddenly comes to life,\u201d Jackson says in a documentary accompanying the film. It\u2019s true. Just that change makes everything click into place.<\/p>\n<p>Then Jackson\u2019s team colorized the footage. It feels colorized, like a hand-tinted photo. But it clarifies the action, the British khaki, the German gray. Then they added sound to the silent footage\u2014dialogue, clanking gear, steaming tea kettles, horses, bagpipes, tanks and, most harrowing, the murderous whistle and gut rumbling blasts of artillery. Jackson\u2019s teams used new recordings of actual vintage cannons plus target practice by a contemporary New Zealand artillery unit.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10036\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10036\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld4w.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-10036\" src=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld4w-1024x553.jpg\" alt=\"Peter Jackson\u2019s WWI documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old.\u201d (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)\" width=\"900\" height=\"486\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld4w-1024x553.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld4w-300x162.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld4w-768x415.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld4w-370x200.jpg 370w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld4w.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10036\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Jackson\u2019s WWI documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old.\u201d (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Speed, color, sound transport us into the trenches. The combined effect is astonishing\u2014a time machine bringing the long gone soldiers back to life.<\/p>\n<p>So far, so incredible. The problem with the film is the story Jackson tells. His approach to the narrative is impressionistic\u2014a collage of 1960s and \u201870s interviews with British veterans and their creaky regional accents atop the restored footage. The story here is familiar\u2014civilians signing up in droves because everyone else is doing it (\u201cWe couldn\u2019t possibly lose,\u201d \u201cI was dead scared that the war would be over before I got there\u201d), shocked and transformed by training, then the trenches, and the appalling tactics. Soldiers were told to walk across muddy fields and blast craters toward endless barbed wire and blazing machine guns. The plan was criminally awful, the fatalities unfathomable.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10037\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10037\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld3w.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-10037\" src=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld3w-1024x553.jpg\" alt=\"Peter Jackson\u2019s WWI documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old.\u201d (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)\" width=\"900\" height=\"486\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld3w-1024x553.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld3w-300x162.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld3w-768x415.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld3w-370x200.jpg 370w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld3w.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10037\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Jackson\u2019s WWI documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old.\u201d (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Jackson favors small details\u2014the way a British soldier intentionally bumps into a German prisoner, the way a man plays a bottle like a guitar, the way the fellow smile and laugh. It humanizes them. These aren\u2019t silent ranks of soldiers rushing around in speed-up footage, but familiar young men.<\/p>\n<p>This brings the carnage closer to home. The waste! And for what reason? Jackson doesn\u2019t bother getting into it.<\/p>\n<p>Because Jackson doesn\u2019t worrying about the details of specific men or units, the result is a generic war story, an uncritical clich\u00e9 of youth and blood and valor. At the end, Jackson strikes mournful notes, but really you feel he\u2019s still thrilled by the movie footage of daring-do.<\/p>\n<p>It brings to mind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/03\/02\/books\/chapters\/jarhead.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Anthony Swofford\u2019s 2003 memoir \u201cJarhead\u201d<\/a> about serving in the Marines the 1990 Gulf War: \u201cThere is talk that many Vietnam films are antiwar, that the message is war is inhumane and look what happens when you train young American men to fight and kill, they turn their fighting and killing everywhere, they ignore their targets and desecrate the entire country, shooting fully automatic, forgetting they were trained to aim. But actually, Vietnam war films are all pro-war, no matter what the supposed message.\u201d Soldiers, he writes, \u201cwatch the same films and are excited by them, because the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For so many of us.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/wonderlandlandfanclub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And <a href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/subscribe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don&#8217;t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10035\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10035\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld2w.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-10035\" src=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld2w-1024x651.jpg\" alt=\"Peter Jackson\u2019s WWI documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old.\u201d (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)\" width=\"900\" height=\"572\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld2w-1024x651.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld2w-300x191.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld2w-768x488.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld2w-370x235.jpg 370w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/picTheyShallNotGrowOld2w.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10035\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Jackson\u2019s WWI documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old.\u201d (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Jackson\u2019s documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old,\u201d which is getting a limited theatrical run in Boston beginning Feb. 1, is a time machine back to the First World War. The film begins with black and white vintage footage from the war of young, White British men signing up and entering training and boarding ships [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,116],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10031"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10047,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10031\/revisions\/10047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}