Movies Reviews

George Harrison: Living in the Material World – New York Film Festival Review

By Ron Wilkinson Oct 5, 2011, 23:28 GMT

Drawing on George Harrison\'s personal archive of photographs, letters, diaries, and memorabilia, Olivia Harrison reveals the arc of his life, from his guitar-obsessed boyhood in Liverpool, to the astonishment of the Beatles years, to his days as an independent musician and bohemian squire. Here too is the record of Harrison\'s lifelong commitment to Indian music, and his adventures as a movie producer, Traveling Wilbury, and Formula One racing fan. The ...more

Even if you thought you knew everything, you will learn from this film.

Martin Scorsese adds another notch to his pistol with this riotous rockumentary about George Harrison, and, yes, that named The Beatles.

Yes, another Beatles Biopic, but one that pulls out all the stops in the feel-good department. It is produced to a tee and rehearsed, reviewed, revised, redacted and outright censored nearly to death. It is a sanitized film, just as the Beatles were a sanitized group.

Even so, it is great fun to watch. There will be few viewers able to resist the urge to hum Beatles tunes for a week after seeing this flick. Even those who thought they knew a thing or two about Harrison will come away surprised.

The film will be shown in two parts on HBO and BBC TV, among other venues. The combined length of the two parts is 208 minutes, so this is no effort to be taken lightly. It covers a broad span of material and it does so in some detail.

Ostensibly  the story of the life of George Harrison, guitarist and sometimes songwriter for the most famous rock group on earth, “Material World” is at least half flat-out Beatle retrospective. The other half is Harrison’s later music, his religious endeavors and his film productions.

The first half of the film may be the best Beatles retrospective made to date. It rocks from start to finish, radiating the thrill of success and the simple joy of being young, with a life of wealth and fame ahead. The sound track is thoroughly produced, as were most of the Beatles’ songs, and the songs match the archival footage with perfect precision.

The viewers in the movie audience are pulled directly into the middle of the action. The scenes of rioting 14-year-old girls at Beatles concerts are as scary as they are hilarious. Those honky chicks really, truly, went crazy when the Fab 4 laid it down.

The farther the film moves along in George’s life, the more serious it gets, ending with his last words to Eric Clapton as George was dying of cancer (these were not his absolute last words, but they are the last of Harrison’s words included in the film). After the rocking and rolling first half of the film, there is a bit of a letdown as the second half dwells on Harrison’s exploration of Eastern religion and music.

Being only seventeen when he joined the Beatles, George was denied at least part of his childhood. Lennon and McCartney took him under their wing and raised him as a guitarist and band member, with John and Paul running the show.

When the Beatles broke up, Harrison was in the depths of disillusion and seriously lacking in personality. His religious experimentation helped him to come out of the fog and laid the foundation for his later work that would represent the grownup George.

Nonetheless, most viewers will find the Eastern religion and music dreadfully boring compared to the first half of Beatles’ music. The last part of the film touches on the “Travelling Wilburys” co-founded by Jeff Lynne and Harrison.

The segment contains shots of Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty. The sequences with Roy Orbison, alone, are worth the price of admission. The interview with Tom Petty is one of the most genuine in this, or any, film.

The interviews with Terry Gilliam tell the story of George’s involvement with the Monty Python group films, a story that few people have heard but one that everybody should know. Without George, the legendary “Life of Brian” might never have been made.

Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney are as one would expect---rehearsed. Ringo Starr is totally cool. When he and Harrison were being interviewed together: Question to Ringo, “Did you ever have hard feelings towards one another.” Ringo, “Well, maybe that time he was suing me.”

Anybody with an ounce of nostalgia in their bones who grew up in any time period close to the 1960s or 1970s will like this film, whether they admit it or not. Most viewers would rather see those feel-good days and hear those feel-good songs than discover that George tried heroin or slept with another man’s wife (no evidence to that effect). There will be some criticism that the movie is more about the Beatles than it is about Harrison, that it is a contrived Beatles re-hash dressed in biopic clothing.

They will be right, but audiences will not care. This is a feel good film about a man who was a feel good guy.

Documentary
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Featuring: Terry Gilliam, Paul McCartney and Eric Idle 
Release Date: October 4, 2011
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some disturbing images and language
Running Time: 208 Minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color