George Harrison: Living in the Material World

How Scorsese Directed this is beyond me...from it's very awkward silent start, through its incredibly bad editing to it's interesting ending, I cannot see how Scorcese was involved, he must have Directed it on paper, and Produced it by phone but it's like they just used his name to get the never before seen footage and interviews. Like the Rolling Stones Shine A Light this proves Scorsese should just stick to making movies. It is an interesting documentary, sure, with some lovely footage and great interviews but it's not put together well...so it gets a 7, hey it did better than the very boring Stones Shine a Light which I gave 3.

I will just say it once more Martin Scorsese should stick to making Movies and stay away from aging Pop Stars... Documentary Maker he is not.

George Harrison was a creative force in the Beatles; not as much a creative force as Lennon and McCartney, but still someone who contributed to their amazing, transformative body of music in a significant way. He was also unusually interested (for a westerner) in eastern mysticism; but was not without his attachments to aspects of the material world. The man's life is told, through old and new interviews with himself and his friends, and archive footage (of which there is plenty), in Martin Scorcese's film. It's fair to say the film is somewhat hagiographic, telling an overwhelming sympathetic story: a reference to a period of heavy drug abuse is made, but not directly commented upon, and no reference is made to the Natural Law Party (whose bizarre platform in the 1992 British general election was actively supported by Harrison). And one might question how much of the story of his later life is really that interesting, or whether his apparent contradictions were the simple consequence of having too much money and time. But one thing does come over: for all his failings, he seems to have been a genuinely loved human being, in a decidedly unusual way; to combine that with the musical legacy of the Beatles is not such a bad epitaph for a life.

I was waiting for this movie so long. Now, I have watched this. I must admit - I was crying at the end of this great, deeply sympathetic, endearing, sincere, sweet eulogy to a great Master, George Harrison, who is not with us for 10 years now. When George died in 2001, I was in real shock. As if my father dies, or my best friend. Maybe, only Harrison produced such a tremendous effect on me as when he was no more, I cried a week. I was asking that year, Can anyone make a movie about him? Martin did. I loved every second of this great narration and was deeply touched by sincere confessions of Ringo, Paul, Eric, Tom, many others. When they cried, I wanted to weep too. George was really somebody special, different, enigmatic and profoundly great. Martin Scorcese made a real labor of love here, and all the rare footage and extremely great commentaries from Ravi, Idles, Gilliam or Patti and Olivia made this big movie a classic right now. Great work, A grade.

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.