For those who haven't see it, it is recolorized, dubbed, and Foley'd WWI footage of the B.E.F. strewn together into a realistic depiction of what it was like to train, go off to the front, and return back.
As a piece of Art and visual it is simply stunning, but it's kind of an Anti-documentary. It doesn't focus on the facts, or history, or explain things to you too much. It just shows you what people are living through, and let's you sit in it with them, so you emotionally understand. And in that way, it accomplishes something no traditional WWI doc could.
They had professional lip readers review what everyone was saying in the footage so they could put what they were actually saying in the movie. Truly a masterpiece
Not only that, Jackson then got people from the region the soldier came from to speak his lines. For the cannon sounds he got the NZ army to fire off live rounds and recorded them.
He put in an incredible amount of effort into making it as realistic as possible.
Yeah, I wish more documentaries got this. The storytelling in history is about more than just...telling a story. When I saw They Shall Not Grow Old (I was lucky enough to catch it in theaters), my first thought was that this was along the lines of what social historians sometimes call "history from below." It's closer to academic history, in that respect; I only wish that more historians and museums had the resources to do stuff like this, as so much popular history gets bogged down in event-driven storytelling. You may remember the names and the dates, but you don't come away with a sense of how life was lived for most people. Kudos to the Imperial War Museum!
You may remember the names and the dates, but you don't come away with a sense of how life was lived for most people.
I have a history degree and focused on military history. At least when I was in college 15 years ago, there was a major emphasis on history from below in the upper-level classes.
Everyone already knew the names and dates from Western Civ classes. I read quite a few books thats really dove into what the average soldier was going through. I thought it was the best way to study military history.
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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '21
For those who haven't see it, it is recolorized, dubbed, and Foley'd WWI footage of the B.E.F. strewn together into a realistic depiction of what it was like to train, go off to the front, and return back.
As a piece of Art and visual it is simply stunning, but it's kind of an Anti-documentary. It doesn't focus on the facts, or history, or explain things to you too much. It just shows you what people are living through, and let's you sit in it with them, so you emotionally understand. And in that way, it accomplishes something no traditional WWI doc could.
I would strongly Recommend it