George Harrison: Living in the Material World [DVD]

A documentary on a music celebrity can be measured by content (what footage did they access and who was willing to contribute?) and insight (what new light did it shed on the subject?). On the first point Martin Scorsese knocks the ball out of the park. Though I didn't feel I knew George any better than before by the end, I was treated to nearly four hours of dazzling and emotionally moving entertainment.

I watched both parts of the film at UK preview and at no point did my attention or enthusiasm flag. In fact I would have happily sat through any outtakes! This beautifully crafted film is packed with concert footage, home movies, press conferences, interviews, photos and documents that I've never seen before, even though I've been researching the Beatles quite heavily for several years for Beatles Songwriting Academy. There are interviews with (or at least footage of) everyone you would hope to see. Beatles, wives, brothers, son, Pythons and peers. Everyone from Eric Clapton to Eric Idle.

The documentary is constructed entirely from interviews and clips without explanation or analysis. The closest we get to a voiceover is Dhani Harrison reading excerpts from his father's diary and letters to his mum. Though the film is visually stunning it's strange watching the practically square picture forced upon us by the source material. Equally quirky is the sound editing. Scorsese doesn't know the meaning of 'fade'. All the music cuts brutally, sometimes after a few seconds. Sometimes this is cool. Mostly it's odd. The film is largely chronological and there are some great juxtapositions of sound and visuals like All Things Must Pass accompanies footage of the WW2 bombers that plagued the Liverpool of Harrison's birth. The first part covers George's life up to the White Album.

It's hard to pick out favourite parts. But Harrison's obvious delight watching archive footage of the Beatles miming This Boy, laughing and singing along, is one. The Beatles performing If I Needed Someone, Harrison playing What Is Love? with Billy Preston, and seeing the Travelling Wilburys in the studio would be others.

There are moments of laugh out loud humour, especially TV footage of crusty professors discuss the significance of Pop music while Beatles and Mick Jagger seeth like captive wild animal in the background and Tom Petty recounting Harrison arriving at his house with a trunk full of ukeleles. But Harrison's story of how Lennon and McCartney inspired him to start composing is the best - "If John and Paul can write [songs] everybody must be able to". The Maharishi (a spiritual Joe Pasquali) and Phil Spector (a croaking, unblinking vision of craziness with a permanent twitching thumb) also provide some unintentional humour.

Scorsese deserves praise for not going down the revisionist myth making route trodden by the Anthology series, especially as Olivia Harrison was one of his producers. Olivia is honest, though vague, about George's infidelity as is Klaus Voorman is about his drug problems. But the lack of a narrator almost makes George a mirror in which we see his world. We know he was loved, deeply, by friends - racing drivers, comedians and film makers, musicians, but we don't whether he was truly loveable. Terry Gilliam describes George as a mix of "grace, humour and a weird kind of angry bitterness" but what made him that way? Did he ever find a release from that bitterness? Was he a good father? Nearing death Harrison asked Olivia if he had been a good husband. She never tells us what her answer was."What's the secret of a long marriage?" She asks herself. "Don't get divorced".

It may sound strange but the highest point for me was simply hearing the music. Listening to Here Comes The Sun and While My Guitar Gently Weeps I was almost moved to tears at the transcendent beauty of those recordings.

Perhaps the fact that the film cause me to fall in love with the music all over again is it's greatest recommendation.

Here's the Scorcese film of George H, the quiet one and at 3+ hours you'd hope that it would be the final word, the full story, the bees knees. It is, however, a curates egg.

The first half covers the years up to around 1968. If you're a Beatles fan then you'll know the tale inside out. What adds a bit more seasoning to this is the addition of previously unseen footage, not much admittedly, but enough to draw you in. I noticed some very early colour footage of the Fabs in what appearred to be their Hamburg days. Also some shots of John and George on a cliff top circa 1967 and more colour footage at Kinfauns - bet the neighbours loved that self made graffitti on the walls...

The second half is where this could deliver, but unfortunately falls down. We get some mention of George as a producer but the axis shifts to his work with the Radha Krishna Temple. That's a shame because GH produced some great albums for Billy Preston, Doris Troy and Jackie Lomax as well as adding his trade mark guitar to Day After Day by Bad Finger. Put it this way, I've got the Apple box and have never played the RKT CD but have played the others.

We get a fair bit of detail on All Things Must Pass and tracks from that glorious album are used as musical beds throughout the film. We also get the Concert for Bangladesh and some welcome shots of the ill fated 1974 Dark Horse tour. But after that, we get nothing at all on George's musical career until the Wilbury's. I spoke with someone I work with who had seen the film on TV and who likes the Beatles but has a skimpy knowledge of George. His words were, "didn't he release any records after 1974? But I remember a number one he had in 1987?". And this is the problem, anyone with a similar knowledge would have thought George was musically mute after 1974.

Not only is there no mention of post 1974 albums, there's also no mention of the Dark Horse label. OK, this wasn't on a par with Apple but it did score a top 45 for Splinter with Costafinetown. It also played home to some pretty esoteric acts, including Ravi Shankar. Back to my work colleague - "every so often some sitar music cropped up, and really once is enough". I take his point.

George's reaction to the murder of JHL is reduced to a quote from Olivia: "He was upset that John hadn't decided how he wanted to leave his body". That was it? I understood that relations between JL and GH were strained at the time of Lennon's death as a result of John's comments on I Me Mine, George's autobiography. Lennon commented that by virtue of the lack of mention of Lennon in the book, George was saying that John's impact on his life was nil. George responded by writing "All Those Years Ago" but changed the lyrics to a more concilliatory tone after JL was shot. Again, no mention.

We're told about Handmade films and maybe too much time is spent on Monty Python because we get no mention of how or why the company folded or of the infamous Madonna Film, Shanghai Surprise. Wasn't it the case that the collapse of Handmade brought George so close to the financial brink that he had to agree to rake over the Beatle coals for Anthology, something he'd previously refused to do? Again, a glaring hole like an elephant in the room.

There's mention of a cocaine issue and maybe dalliances with other women. You only have to look at the moon face George in the 1974 tour shots to see that there was maybe a drug thing going off. Also, the 1979 song Soft Hearted Hana showed that even as late as the end of that decade, George was still dabbling.

Of the presentation, I watched the Blu Ray and the sound and picture quality is top notch. You only have to see the brief clip of the Strawberry Fields Forever clip and hear the Savoy Truffle track to appreciate that perhaps now is the time for Anthology to be transferred to Blu Ray.

And the package? You get a Blu Ray of the film as well as 2DVD of it. The extras include additional interviews, including a nice McCartney tale as well as more footage from the dark Horse. Unfortunately it's more of them there sitars... You also get a ten track CD of George demos. I initially thought that these were All Things Must pass tracks but listening to them, it's clear that they span George's career - there are some parping 1980 saxophones on at least one track. No track details are given, but no doubt someone like Doug Sulphy is working out the parentage as we type.

You also get a reduced version of the hard back book, which is OK because I'd not bought it. There are also a couple of high quality prints: a B&W early shot and a smashing colour one from the 1968 Mad Day Out sessions. Finally, you can use the box as a frame to show the prints if you like. But you won't will you?

In summary, is it worth it? Well, the film was shown on TV a week or so after this was released so if you've taped that then you're missing just the bonus footage, the music CD and the book/ prints. The Blu ray format is, however, grand. On balance, it's a lovely set. The film is flawed and the omissions regrettable but this is probably the most important Beatle related release since Anthology in terms of footage.

As almost every review here concentrates on the film, I've decided to limit mine to the Deluxe Edition itself...

THE HD TRANSFER:
In a word: Incredible! Living In The Material World draws from every recording medium of the last 60 years, from super 8 to 35mm, VHS to HD video, all of which is rendered beautifully across this 1080p disc. The filmmakers have clearly gone to great lengths to source the very best picture elements available. The film footage is transferred so beautifully it is almost akin to watching a cinema projection. The interviews from The Beatles' Anthology are a revelation, banishing the pixellated DVD edition into oblivion. The countless stills are so pin sharp and sumptuous they almost feel 3-Dimensional. An absolutely gorgeous HD transfer.

Somewhat bizarrely, the 2.0 PCM soundtrack seems to be in mono. This is more than made up for by the fantastic DTS HD Master Audio track. These songs would sound wonderful on a beat-up transistor radio, but listening to Harrison and The Beatles in master quality isn't entirely unwelcome.

THE BLU-RAY/DVD EXTRAS:
A huge disappointment. I was expecting more extensive versions of the interviews featured in the film. Unfortunately, the entire selection only amounts to a measly 23 minutes. Paul McCartney and Neil Aspinall's interviews clock in at only 2:23 & 3:31 respectively. Such a missed opportunity considering the huge amount of material the filmmakers must have amassed. The extras exclusive to this deluxe edition are equally "blink and you'll miss it", offering nothing of worth compared to the standard release.

THE AUDIO CD:
A nice if inessential collection of demos, drawing mainly from the All Things Must Pass era (fleshed-out versions of six of the ten tracks included on the 30 minute disc feature on that album). More enjoyable than the film extras, the standouts for me were the warmly primitive versions of "Awaiting on You All" and "Behind That Locked Door", with Pete Drake's pedal steel shining through beautifully. I do not have a huge knowledge of George Harrison bootlegs so I am unaware of how rare these tracks may be, and no recording dates are supplied.

THE PACKAGING:
Awful. This does not compare favourably with similarly-priced "deluxe editions" at all. The white cardboard "picture frame" looks and feels very cheap, as does the inner disc book, which is made from glossy but also rather flimsy card. The section for holding the discs is utterly useless. Containing no inner studs to keep the discs in place, all 4 of them had broken free inside the box upon opening. Mine were thankfully scratch-free, although the holders are so bad that the discs fly out every time the box is picked up!

THE BOOK:
Simply an edited paperback version of the already-released hardback. I'd hazard a guess that any fans willing to cough up for this box set will probably own the hardback edition already, which features many more photographs. The inclusion of this condensed version is pointless.

Sadly, I cannot recommend this deluxe edition, particularly for the current price tag. We've had a glut of "ultimate editions" of late and this does not compare favourably with any of them. It is also particularly disappointing after the beautiful Harrison and Ravi Shankar Collaborations box set. I would therefore urge anyone who can live without the demo CD to buy the separate Blu-ray or DVD editions and the accompanying hardback instead. Less money for a much better experience.

UPDATE:

The CD, billed as being "exclusive to this edition" when this box was originally marketed (at double the current price, I might add), has now been issued separately, rendering this edition entirely irrelevant. Therefore, I've dropped this to one star.

Perhaps the Harrison estate should examine Paul McCartney's recent reissues for an example of what "deluxe editions" really mean...