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While writing Lord of the Rings, author J.R.R. Tolkien drew heavily on his experiences fighting in World War I. It’s not difficult to see the parallels—a world torn apart by evil, alliances fractured and formed, a veil of darkness descending upon the world of man. It was in the hospital while recovering from injuries sustained in the Battle of the Somme that Tolkien first began to materialize what would become the cornerstone of modern fantasy, the pathos of the war influencing and directing the author’s imagination throughout its writing.
It makes a kind of sense, then, that Peter Jackson, the director who would bring Tolkien’s epic vision to life in 2001, 2002, and 2003, would assemble one of the most remarkable documentaries on The Great War ever made, They Shall Not Grow Old. The symmetry there is delicious almost to the point of magical. Jackson, arguably one of the world’s greatest living directors, achieved his acclaim and, therefore, the opportunity to assemble this motion picture, thanks to Lord of the Rings, which was only written because of the experiences had by one man during the subject of this documentary.
Whatever twists of fate or magic may have led to the production of They Shall Not Grow Old, we’re all luckier for it. Jackson, a rare visionary of both technique and technology, culls from the archives of the Imperial War Museum to weave a film that is as close to the harrowing action of World War I as we can get today. Jackson, who worked for free, restored more than 100 hours of footage—wildly degraded by its century of age—into high definition (also at no cost to the IWM, ensuring their footage lasts for more generations), colorizing much along the way to give modern (and future) audiences a better glimpse of what the men along the trenches saw.
With those 100 hours (less than 2 of which were ultimately used for the film), Jackson takes us through the war from enlistment, to training, to deployment, to the trench, to armistice. Juxtaposed with that are interviews with WWI veterans done by BBC Radio in the 60s and 70s, as a cadre of unnamed voices tell their stories—they the enlisted, what training was like, what they saw, what they did, and more. Jackson gives us no context for any of this in the film itself, instead thrusting us blind into the world of the trenches as the men who survived talk us through it.
It’s an ingenious approach to history. Refusing to bog us down with names and dates, Jackson allows us to experience the war almost for ourselves. In a sense, we are placed into the trenches alongside the men who fought there. Call it history for the non-historian. We’re given raw story, and even rawer emotion, as we’re taken through life along the western front. By making the men—many of whom were boys who lied about their age to join the fight—in the images and the voices narrating nameless, we could be watching anyone. The result is a powerfully human look at World War I and of war itself.
From a technical standpoint They Shall Not Grow Old is a marvel unto itself. The remastered footage is stunning, bringing new life to a fading history. Colorization techniques, though still imperfect, are vastly superior to what we’ve seen before, and they’re utilized here to stunning effect. Never before have the men in these documentaries seemed so real and so alive. We can see the fear etched into the lines of their eyes and the light of hope that still glows within them.
Never have we been able to see The Great War the way we do now. Jackson has created a monumental memorial for the men who fought on the lines for Britain, allowing their stories and their lives to shine into a new century and beyond. War and its effects, which so ingrains itself on the minds and psyches of the generation that lives through them, has a tendency to fade as years tick onward. History has a tendency to fade into blackness, as we forget the experiences and the stories until it becomes nothing. What Jackson has done with They Shall Not Grow Old is shine the light anew on this century old war, reminding us all of the sacrifices made by those who will remain young immortal for our continued freedom.
They Shall Not Grow Old is now playing in theaters everywhere.
