George Harrison: Living in the Material World [Blu-ray]

This is a wonderful 4-hour (counting the extras) celebration of George Harrison's life. The historical footage includes clips from various interviews with him, and the new interviews focus on those who knew him best, including immediate family. It even includes some items shot by George himself on video. It's all woven together in a way that keeps the story moving without having to introduce a voice-over narrator. The result is a very intimate and moving portrait of a remarkable and complex man. Unlike Scorsese's earlier study of Bob Dylan (No Direction Home), this one covers Harrison's whole life, giving a remarkable inside view of the Beatles from their early days in Hamburg through their breakup and beyond, and showing how George's musical career continued to develop, along with his spirituality. The director's skill at visual storytelling shines through, and so does his fascination with musicians, but without imposing his own judgments on the events. A superb documentary, one that inspires more laughter and tears than most fictional films.

By the way, contrary to what the Amazon.ca listing says, the aspect ratio of this Blu-ray (and i assume the DVD also) is 1.78:1 anamorphic, although of course much of the older footage was shot in 1.33:1. The sound quality overall is excellent too.

It's true that half the film deals with the Beatles years, which has been covered so often, but there's plenty of footage I've never seen before (and I've seen a LOT of Beatles footage). It also shows Harrison's solo career (including the Traveling Wilburys), spirituality, passion for auto racing and film making (including Monty Python), and his family.

Even though it's 3-4 hours, it could easily have been longer. It's not a proper biography in that it doesn't fill in the gaps between periods of time and it assumes you already know much of his history... if you do, the film works well and shows much new footage. I think the film works, in that it captures the essence of Harrison as a person.

Many could argue that the reason we know George is because of the music, and so the film should have far more footage of him performing and recording (for example, a clip of Harrison performing on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970's, or during his Japan tour in 1991, or include some of his unique music videos), stress each of his solo hits (for example, Blow Away, All Those Years Ago, the hits from the Cloud Nine album, etc.), and have far less talking about his film making, auto racing, etc.

Overall, at around $20 I think this film offers much bang for your buck. I also think George deserves to have a comprehensive DVD release of all his videos and concerts.

This is a beautiful study of what it means to be a quiet person. It just happens that the person is George Harrison so the story of his quest for deep meaning in his life is akso the story of The Beatles, told in candid interviews, home movie clips and rarely seen video footage. All assembled with wit and love by Martin Scorcese.