People don’t often see film footage from 100 years ago with robust color and sound. But director Peter Jackson, known for “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, is changing that expectation.
“They Shall Not Grow Old” is a documentary filled with restored video and audio clips chosen from hundreds of original World War I films from archives of the Imperial War Museums in the United Kingdom. WWI veterans selected from over 600 hours of BBC and IWM archived interviews narrate the movie.
ht/ PHenry
What a meat grinder of a conflict and a colossal loss of life.
It’s a great documentary. But very sad.
Oddly, it seems to be playing only on Dec 17 and 27th so if you want to see it, put it on your calendar.
Incidentally, lots is of unpolitically correct humor and situations in Clint Eastwood’s ‘The mule’. Classic Clint.
The war to end all wars at the height of the birth and spread of global statism. We continue to pay the price.
PHenry: “Incidentally, lots is of unpolitically correct humor and situations in Clint Eastwood’s ‘The mule’. Classic Clint.”
They filmed a good bit of that here in the town I live in.
wow. That is something.
I say we band together to avoid military service, and just let the Jews, women, and homosexuals fight all our wars for us.
It will be a nice change of pace for the next 100 years.
@ Mithrandir – I am trying to hold OFF on how historically ignorant (for maybe several thousand years) you actually sound when it comes to military service and the people that backed those in their military service.
Eowyn? Galadriel? Arwyn?
Gandalf, IF that is who you are, would not be proud!!
Gandalf the Grey or WHITE?
Interesting how you TRASH those people in a Jackson made piece??
What percentage of Joooows represent the US population to begin with!??!?
@ BFH – thank you for posting, I had seen this and made me think of me grandpa, AEF, 51st Infantry.
I simply look at this film as a remarkable retrieval and restoration of archival footage that was nearly lost. I’m a history buff. To rearbitrate the causes, question the sensibility of, or to justify this, or any other war, is not a debate in which I wish to engage.
I still want to see it on Monday.
My paternal grandfather also fought in that war. Never spoke of it.
Me grandpappy was gassed in WWI. He survived (I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t), but had respiratory problems the rest of life.
Grandpa came back and resumed his life In Ohio. He went back to deer hunting but quickly gave it up, saying he barely survived with soldiers shooting at him and wasn’t about to be shot by reckless weekend hunters who shot at anything that moved. Also hated the Turks who would slither into trenches in the dead of night and silently slit throats. Grandpa didn’t tell me that, but I remember dad telling me those stories.
My Great Uncle, Put Charlie Miller, served in an Artillery unit in the War. He contracted and died of the “Spanish” Flu in France. His body was returned home for reburial after the war. May he and his compatriots rest in peace.
Well, we’ve been told if women ran the world there’d be no wars.
We’ve been told more silly notions than I wish to catalog.
I don’t think those jolly chaps in the photo have been to the front yet.
PHenry
Did your grandpa serve in the middle-east?
Mithrndr.
The homos will bend over backwards to be of service in a war.
I am embarrassed to think of the lives and pain many US vets wasted over the years for the current large number of Washington leaders who don’t care as they blindly trample the US Constitution into the dirt on a hourly basis. F them.
@Fur ~ remember, a misogynist is a man that hates women as much as other women do.
Colorization of historical footage is compelling for some of the same reasons colorization of classic B&W films is jarring – it removes the “another time, another place” character. WWI was part of the same reality we live in, and not so long ago. It looks like this will be playing near me, and I’m going.
@BFH,
Like heck there would be no wars. Bet you never worked in an office of 12 jealous women.
@Tim Buktu
Honestly, I don’t know. I think so. You hear second hand stories as a kid and it was meaningless at the time. You file it away in your memory bank. And dad is gone, so I cannot ask the questions.
As many died worldwide from the ‘flu’ as died in battle.
Horrific numbers of death
If they ran the world just who would make the sandwiches?
You’re right. There would just be dozens of countries that are FINE.
@ Mithrindir – how about the Molly Pitcher(s) of the American Revolution instead of non Middle Earth shit?
Read history.
My father was scheduled to report for a physical and possible induction when World War 1 ended. By the time WW2 came around, he was too old to serve. It seems he hit the seam, so to speak, at least when it came to world wars.
P.S. – Have I mentioned I was a late-in-life baby?
🙂
If my workplace were all men, it would definitely be more peaceful. Not less cutthroat, but also more challenging and competitive, which men like. I hate to say it. But it’s true.
Men like rules that don’t change. Women have been changing the rules for over 40 years. Hey ladies, lay off our rules. We we’re doing just fine before you butted in!
@PHenry
Its cool. I don’t know much about my grandpa’s service. I can only guess that the gas attack he was in happened early in the war, before gas masks were issued. He served in the Canadian Army, which was holding the line when the first gas attacks happened. According to my father, the men urinated into their handkerchiefs or any material they could find and held them against their faces. I don’t know how much it helped if at all.
@VietVet.
I’m guessing your dad was born no later than 1902 at the latest. A birthdate of 1902 would make him 16 at the end of WWI. You being a VietVet (I am also), would have to have been born sometime between 1940 and 1955. I’m guessing 1948, the year I was born.
@Tim Buktu: You’re a pretty good guesser. My father was born in 1900, my mother in 1904. I have an older brother who was born in 1924 who was being drafted into the Army out of high school in 1942 for WW2. Because my parents were afraid he might not come back from the war, they decided to have another child. Thus I was born in 1943, just in time to be drafted for Vietnam in 1966. At one time my brother (who became a pilot in the USAAF and later had a career in the USAF) and I were in the military at the same time. In fact, he flew me “Space available” in a B-57 to California on my way to RVN in 1968.
But that’s another story.
🙂
I tried to talk em out of it. I flew between Vienna, Berlin, London, Paris, and Moscow almost non-stop for months. Kaiser this, Emperor that, King here, Minister there, Tsar over yonder – all of em “big” men and none of them willing to listen to me – the only smart guy on the ground!
I even had Woody Wilson put me on TV! Fat lot of good it did!
Nobody wanted to listen – every one of em thought he’d be the big winner.
Even took Helen Thomas on a couple of those trips!
Ah, well …