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.

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 had very low expectations- I have seen so many movies about the Beatles and they all use the same tired old video clips we've all seen a million times.

Much to my surprise, most of the material was fresh , amazing material that I'd never seen before.. with insights from Paul and Ringo that held me spellbound.. how George was introduced to John Lennon and the first song he played on top of a bus(watch the movie for the details) -just the little things you'd never know unless you saw the movie..

In my opinion, the first half was better than the second half, I think mostly because I knew how things would end... and I really, really didn't want it to end. But it did.

I miss George and John. It was a fantastic movie.

Of course you'd have to be a fan to really appreciate Martin Scorcese's extensive re- telling of the life and times of George Harrison but I am and so I presume was everyone at the sold out screening of the movie tonight at the Glasgow Film Theatre. More assembled than directed of course, Scorcese takes us through the highs and occasional lows of the man's life without signposting anything too obviously so that the near four-hour viewing time rarely drags (it was broken by a half-hour intermission at the showing I attended) and I found myself rapt with attention.

The film starts with a typically humorous, modest and elusive appearance by George seen between the flowers in his massive garden at Friar's Park, which mansion features so extensively in the footage shown that it should almost get a credit too. From there, Scorcese takes us on a linear journey dwelling on the major events in his life without markedly signposting the passage of time at any point, which I think helped the flow of the film. There was much archive photography and video footage which even a die-hard like me hadn't seen before, and the interviewees are well chosen and well edited, although I was surprised that say, Jeff Lynne or Michael Palin didn't get a look-in, although maybe Marty thought re. the latter that the presence of two other Pythons (Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam) was enough. The best of the interviewees are probably Gillam, Ringo and George's widow while the resemblance to his son Dhani is quite uncanny. The shock appearance of a now incarcerated Phil Spector, looking ridiculous in his "wig of the day" is controversial and prompted gales of laughter amongst the Glasgow crowd but he's actually surprisingly lucid. Yes perhaps Scorcese dwells too much on the Beatles time and omits his output from 1973 to 1988 almost totally - it was a mistake surely to not mark the sequence on Lennon's murder without playing even a snatch of "All Those Years Ago" and likewise to make no reference at all to his comeback hit single "Got My Mind Set On You" and parent album "Cloud Nine". Even so, while some may argue as to whether Harrison's own legacy deserves this Scorcese tribute in the wake of the great director's other recent homages to Dylan and the Stones, the fact that the audience I was among thought enough of what they had watched to spontaneously applaud at the end tells its own story, I think. As we near the tenth anniversary of his untimely death, I certainly enjoyed the movie and left convinced that George was a decent, not perfect man who while he may he have been the third most talented of the four Beatles, was more than worthy of this sincere and entertaining tribute.

Martin Scorsese has throughout his career, made several labor of love documentaries mainly on the subject of another of his passions, music. In this one his focus is on "the quiet" Beatle. Harrison was always seen as completely secondary to Lennon and McCartney. However, in this film , Scorsese shows the complexity of his character. We see his very important contribution to The Beatles, not only through his own song writing, but also the elements that essentially made many of the Lennon/McCartney compositions.

We follow him through his exploration of, particularly, Indian mysticism and philosophy, and how he integrated this into his everyday life. His contribution to the film industry is summarily gone over, from his involvement with Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1974), through to the creation of the production company, Handmade Films, that became involved in some of the great British films of the 1980's.

What is apparent throughout the film is Scorsese's clear love of the music. Using still photographs, there are many sections that fill the three and a half hours with Harrison's songs. Scorsese uses these throughout, and presents them chronologically, so that we are able to witness the evolution of Harrison's song writing.

A clear documentary made by someone passionate about the subject, the film paints a picture of a very interesting man, who lived through much change around and within himself. This is a very well researched, well constructed story, and whilst long, does not seem that way whilst viewing.

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