George Harrison Hits the Screen in Scorsese Doc
Epic new film illuminates the inner life of the most enigmatic Beatle
As Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison dug through their archives to assemble the Beatles Anthology documentary in the mid-Nineties, Harrison made a private vow to his wife, Olivia: "One day, I'll do my own anthology." The ex-Beatle, who died in 2001, never got the chance, but his wife made sure his wish came true in grand fashion. In October, HBO will debut Martin Scorsese's two-part documentary, George Harrison: Living in a Material World – and Olivia has compiled a lavish companion book packed with unseen photos and diary entries. "I'm fairly awed by what Marty has put together," says Olivia. "It's a story that truly captures the essence of George."
The project had its start in 2005, when Olivia attended the London premiere of Scorsese's Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home. She shared her hope for a similar movie about her husband with the film's producer, Nigel Sinclair. After discussing possible directors for months, the pair "delicately approached" Scorsese. "To our surprise and delight, he said he was very intrigued by George's story," Sinclair recalls.
The center of the film is Harrison's spiritual quest, a search for meaning in life that began with a Beatlemania-era revelation that material success wasn't necessarily accompanied by fulfillment. "He was trying to find a way to simplicity, a way to live truthfully and compassionately," Scorsese says. "It was never a straight line, but that's not the point. I think he found an understanding: that there's no such thing as 'success' – there's just the path."
The documentary includes new interviews with McCartney, Starr, Yoko Ono, George Martin, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton (who recalls watching Harrison write "Here Comes the Sun") and many more. But Scorsese and his team relied heavily on archives kept by Harrison himself: footage of the Beatles on vacation; a recording of Harrison's first sitar lesson with Ravi Shankar; home movies of Harrison fooling around in his recording studio with his son Dhani. "We set up a little production office in our house," says Olivia. "George lived in the house for 30 years, and he would just throw things in this drawer and that drawer. So every cupboard had something in it." The production team set up research offices in New York and London, working for years to find footage and photographs, including every filmed Harrison interview they could track down.
From their sleepless Hamburg days to their Let It Be-era squabbles, the Beatles' story has been told again and again, so Scorsese took great pains to use rare or unseen footage for the first part of the film. "The scenes of them running from hotel rooms and airports and such are just a little bit different than the ones you've seen," says Sinclair. "He approached the Beatles story from George's perspective, so it becomes a more inside, more first-person experience."
The film doesn't shy from Harrison's darker side, showing footage of a ravaged performance from his 1974 solo tour, and hinting at challenges in his marriage. "He never said he was a saint, but he always said he was a sinner," says Olivia. "He wanted to do everything in life. He really did."
The surviving Beatles provide some of the film's most powerful moments: McCartney makes an impassioned argument that anyone who thinks only he and Lennon were important in the group is wildly wrong; Starr begins to weep when he recalls visiting Harrison as the guitarist battled terminal lung cancer.
The post-Beatles section of the film has the most surprises, from intimate footage of Traveling Wilburys jamming to Olivia's harrowing account of a 1999 home invasion by a violent, deranged fan. It also gives equal weight to Harrison's nonmusical ventures: his work as a movie producer; his motor-racing fandom; his loving efforts to restore his country estate. "George thought hard about how to live his life after being a Beatle," says Sinclair, "and what I take away from this film is that he figured it out."
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
George Harrison Documentary Premieres at Telluride
Olivia Harrison opens up about the making of 'Living In a Material World' at first screenings
In the ending minutes of the documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Ringo Starr has what he calls a "Barbara fucking Walters" moment. Wiping away tears, Starr recalls the last words his lifelong pal and Beatles bandmate said to him before he died.
The Martin Scorsese-directed, five-years-in-the-making Living in the Material World premiered over Labor Day weekend at the Telluride Film Festival, now in its 38th year. The 210 minute (3 1/2 hour) two-part documentary, which coincides with the 10-year anniversary of Harrison's death in 2001 from lung cancer, will begin airing on HBO starting October 5th, but screened three times at the film festival, including a free showing on the outdoor screen in Telluride's town square, Elks Park.
"It's been five years and it really took a good two years before I could just open my hand a bit," George's widow Olivia Harrison said at a screening Q&A of sharing her late husband's keepsakes in research for the film. "There were letters that George never imagined his mother saved or that would be read. They were so revealing and just so honest; that really was the beginning of this project."
One particular archived postcard came from a trip Harrison took with Paul McCartney, a school friend before the Beatles, in their teens. "They went on a hitchhiking holiday in Wales and he wrote a postcard home saying how much distance they had covered in a day, how proud they were and where they slept that night." Olivia recalls. "It was just so sweet. All these things had been saved and had been in a tin box in the attic, a rusty old box that I opened, and I closed it and left it there for a very long time."
Olivia now laughs at the initial struggle she had with letting go of the personal relics. "There were these little time capsules everywhere around the house – there was even a song titled 'I'm Just the Jealous Kind' – and it took me a very long time to bring them out from where they were. In fact, if this whole team and Marty hadn't been so patient this movie would not have been made. I would show them the letters and then take them home."
Starr, however, wasn't the only one to weep during his interview, although his tears are the only ones caught on camera. Tom Petty describes Harrison's fever in forming the Traveling Wilburys, how the group's track 'Handle With Care' was coined, and a phone call from George after their Wilburys bandmate Roy Orbison passed away. ("Aren't you glad it wasn't you?" Harrison asked Petty.) "Tom Petty stayed for three hours; he wept," producer Nigel Sinclair says of the interviews with George's inner circle – McCartney, Klaus Voormann, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Jim Keltner, Eric Clapton and even the wife they shared Pattie Boyd – that make up the film.
"Every single interview resulted in tears," producer Margaret Bodde adds. "And this is years after George's passing, because everyone was connecting with their true love of George and he touched them all in very obviously special way." While he was known as the "quiet Beatle," Scorsese's documentary shows that George undeniably left a loud mark far beyond the riffs of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
Other memorable moments include an afro-less Phil Spector describing the making of All Things Must Pass, Harrison's six-time platinum 1970 solo album released following the break-up of the Beatles.
"There were a few titles that came up, but it really is about living in the material – it's exactly what it's about," says Olivia about choosing Harrison's less-popular 1973 follow-up for the title of the documentary.
"We had All Things Must Pass – we obviously played with that." Sinclair says of picking the title. "Olivia was concerned because it was the title of an album, and not to make people think that was the making of the album. And then everyone played with other names and this name fought its way to the top of the pack and held its own. It became what the movie is about and I guess that's why George chose that title for the album."
While the film remarkably captures Harrison's use of music to help him on his own spiritual quest, beyond the materialism that came with unending Beatles fame, the hardest part to stomach is Olivia's recounting of the night an intruder repeatedly stabbed Harrison in his own home.
"I was reluctant because I didn't want it to be the redefining factor of his life," Olivia says of bravely deciding to detail how she fought back with the world upon Scorsese's request. Dhani, Olivia and George's only son, even admits in the film that the baffling incident took years off his father's life, after his fight with cancer.
"First half I can watch quite easily because I'm watching another life," Olivia admits of the final cut, "and then when the second half comes in, now I have to leave. Although I imagined what this documentary would be like and I guided them and I gave them a timeline of the important things in George's life, I still had no idea it was going to be 'this' film. Marty just made something far beyond what I imagined. Certainly, not the movie I would have made because it would have been completely happy shiny people holding hands. It was Dhani who really said, 'You know, you have to have the dark and the light, you have to show all the sides, you can't sanctify him or vilify him, but George was a big one for contrast."
Adds Olivia: "I feel lighter now that it's done and it's out. I know it's something George wanted done and it's honest. There isn't anything in it that's not true."
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Words can't describe how excited I am to see this documentary. Every little press release gets me more excited. Hands down more excited for this than the PJ20 film.
Words can't describe how excited I am to see this documentary. Every little press release gets me more excited. Hands down more excited for this than the PJ20 film.
:thumbup: Same here. I'm still excited for PJ20 but that excitement is no where near the excitement I have for this movie. It's been a long time waiting and now in exactly one month, it's going to premiere. I'll be recording it and then watching it during the weekend with my dad. The book is already pre-ordered from Amazon, which comes out a few days before the premiere. I know Scorsese did a wonderful job on this.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Got the Rolling Stone issue today with George on the cover. Flipped to the article and looked it over, looks like a great read. Probably dig into it later tonight or tomorrow.
Got the Rolling Stone issue today with George on the cover. Flipped to the article and looked it over, looks like a great read. Probably dig into it later tonight or tomorrow.
It's a small, quick read. I think they've taken small excerpts from the book. Loved some of the quotes and photos from it.
Also, I can't wait for the book! Have it on Amazon pre-order. I just hope they announce something for a soundtrack. I'd love to hear those unreleased songs.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Got the Rolling Stone issue today with George on the cover. Flipped to the article and looked it over, looks like a great read. Probably dig into it later tonight or tomorrow.
It's a small, quick read. I think they've taken small excerpts from the book. Loved some of the quotes and photos from it.
Also, I can't wait for the book! Have it on Amazon pre-order. I just hope they announce something for a soundtrack. I'd love to hear those unreleased songs.
Yeah, you were right, way too short. Was expecting more from a cover story. I might have to buy the book, this was such a tease in RS this month.
Got the Rolling Stone issue today with George on the cover. Flipped to the article and looked it over, looks like a great read. Probably dig into it later tonight or tomorrow.
It's a small, quick read. I think they've taken small excerpts from the book. Loved some of the quotes and photos from it.
Also, I can't wait for the book! Have it on Amazon pre-order. I just hope they announce something for a soundtrack. I'd love to hear those unreleased songs.
Yeah, you were right, way too short. Was expecting more from a cover story. I might have to buy the book, this was such a tease in RS this month.
Yep, but at least it gave us a preview of the book!
You'll want to buy the book. It says unreleased/never-before-seen photographs and letters.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
The book is on its way!! Should be arriving tomorrow! I can't wait.
If you can manage to get on George's site sometime today/tonight, there's an exclusive clip from the movie. I've tried to get on but people must've crashed the site to watch it.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Got this in an email from the clip with additional info on the DVD release:
The limited-edition Deluxe version is packaged in a bespoke picture frame box with easel back for photo display, and includes 2 DVDs and one Blu-ray featuring the film plus 11 bonus features, a 10-track CD of previously-unreleased recordings, 2 exclusive lithographs, and a 96-page book.
CD Tracklist:
My Sweet Lord (demo) 3:33
Run Of The Mill (demo) 1:56
I'd Have You Any Time (early take) 3:06
Mama You've Been On My Mind (demo) 3:04
Let It Be Me (demo) 2:56
Woman Don't You Cry For Me (early take) 2:44
Awaiting On You All (early take) 2:40
Behind That Locked Door (demo) 3:29
All Things Must Pass (demo) 4:38
The Light That Has Lighted The World (demo) 2:23
Bonus Features:
(*exclusive to Deluxe Edition)
George plays the Uke* 1:37
Deep Blue* 1:11
Here Comes The Sun 2:38
Dispute and Violence 5:12
Growing Up In Liverpool* 4:20
Paul McCartney 2:23
Neil Aspinall* 3:31
The Inner Light* 2:31
Jeff Lynne 2:56
Gordon Murray* 4:17
Damon Hill 4:21
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Got this in an email from the clip with additional info on the DVD release:
The limited-edition Deluxe version is packaged in a bespoke picture frame box with easel back for photo display, and includes 2 DVDs and one Blu-ray featuring the film plus 11 bonus features, a 10-track CD of previously-unreleased recordings, 2 exclusive lithographs, and a 96-page book.
CD Tracklist:
My Sweet Lord (demo) 3:33
Run Of The Mill (demo) 1:56
I'd Have You Any Time (early take) 3:06
Mama You've Been On My Mind (demo) 3:04
Let It Be Me (demo) 2:56
Woman Don't You Cry For Me (early take) 2:44
Awaiting On You All (early take) 2:40
Behind That Locked Door (demo) 3:29
All Things Must Pass (demo) 4:38
The Light That Has Lighted The World (demo) 2:23
Bonus Features:
(*exclusive to Deluxe Edition)
George plays the Uke* 1:37
Deep Blue* 1:11
Here Comes The Sun 2:38
Dispute and Violence 5:12
Growing Up In Liverpool* 4:20
Paul McCartney 2:23
Neil Aspinall* 3:31
The Inner Light* 2:31
Jeff Lynne 2:56
Gordon Murray* 4:17
Damon Hill 4:21
Awesome! And how much does the whole deluxe set cost?
Got this in an email from the clip with additional info on the DVD release:
The limited-edition Deluxe version is packaged in a bespoke picture frame box with easel back for photo display, and includes 2 DVDs and one Blu-ray featuring the film plus 11 bonus features, a 10-track CD of previously-unreleased recordings, 2 exclusive lithographs, and a 96-page book.
CD Tracklist:
My Sweet Lord (demo) 3:33
Run Of The Mill (demo) 1:56
I'd Have You Any Time (early take) 3:06
Mama You've Been On My Mind (demo) 3:04
Let It Be Me (demo) 2:56
Woman Don't You Cry For Me (early take) 2:44
Awaiting On You All (early take) 2:40
Behind That Locked Door (demo) 3:29
All Things Must Pass (demo) 4:38
The Light That Has Lighted The World (demo) 2:23
Bonus Features:
(*exclusive to Deluxe Edition)
George plays the Uke* 1:37
Deep Blue* 1:11
Here Comes The Sun 2:38
Dispute and Violence 5:12
Growing Up In Liverpool* 4:20
Paul McCartney 2:23
Neil Aspinall* 3:31
The Inner Light* 2:31
Jeff Lynne 2:56
Gordon Murray* 4:17
Damon Hill 4:21
Awesome! And how much does the whole deluxe set cost?
Not sure. Haven't seen it yet. The UK version comes out the week after it airs on HBO. In the email, it said the US release would be in the spring. Makes no sense to me. So I'm wondering if I should order the version from the UK or wait for the US version.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Totally stoked for this...went on a huge George kick this past summer when I first heard about the film. And my book is scheduled for delivery today. It's a happy day for me indeed.
Book should be arriving today for me. I can't wait for it!
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Amazon said it was out for delivery today (yesterday) and I didn't receive it. I'm calling USPS tomorrow to wonder where my damn book is! They better not give me a bullshit excuse that it was raining/pouring today (yesterday) and that's why they didn't deliver it.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Did anyone else who got it notice how heavy it is?
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Well, they could only use archival interviews of Lennon in the film...and I bet they simply couldn't find any interview material of Lennon discussing George specifically...just my guess. Yoko's credited, so I'm sure Lennon plays a big role in the story.
It is interesting, though...because shortly before Lennon's death, he felt slighted by George, due to the fact that John was barely mentioned in George's autobiography, "I Me Mine."
Well, they could only use archival interviews of Lennon in the film...and I bet they simply couldn't find any interview material of Lennon discussing George specifically...just my guess. Yoko's credited, so I'm sure Lennon plays a big role in the story.
It is interesting, though...because shortly before Lennon's death, he felt slighted by George, due to the fact that John was barely mentioned in George's autobiography, "I Me Mine."
I know they could've used archival footage because George is obviously listed as that. I'm sure there are interview material of him talking about George; maybe from The Dick Cavett Show, but I'd have to go back and look at the DVD.
Yep, he was very angry at George about that but George said he really did love John. John had George play on the Imagine album and there is video footage of it.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Awesome! Waiting to see if my mom will budge and let us get HBO. My dad and I keep asking her if we are.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Documentary examines George Harrison
'Living in the Material World,' Martin Scorsese's film on HBO, reveals an unvarnished look at the late Beatle, getting a boost from widow Olivia Harrison's cooperation.
When Martin Scorsese and Olivia Harrison first sat down about five years ago to strategize about a documentary on the life of George Harrison, both quickly zeroed in on a letter the young Beatle wrote to his family at the height of Beatlemania.
"It was a letter George had written when he was not more than 22," Harrison said of the man to whom she was married for 23 years before his death from cancer a decade ago. "It was in 1965, and the Beatles would have been really cresting at that point. He was writing home and told his family, 'I know that this isn't it. I knew I was going to be famous, but now I know I can reach the real top of what man can achieve, which is self-realization.' He knew then that [material reward] wasn't it."
That letter figures into a pivotal moment in Scorsese's film, "George Harrison: Living in the Material World," which premieres on HBO over two nights Wednesday and Thursday to accommodate its 31/2-hour length.
In the scene, George says how lucky the Beatles were to acquire so many of the material goods early on that most people spend their entire lives yearning for, because they learned relatively young how hollow such things ultimately ring.
Olivia Harrison gave Scorsese and his team virtual carte blanche access to home movies, family photos, audio recordings and other items from her husband's estate for use in the film, which paints a richly detailed and unvarnished picture of the man initially pigeonholed as "the quiet Beatle."
A more accurate sobriquet might have been "the spiritual Beatle" to reflect the inward quest that seemed to capture Harrison early in a life about which he once famously said that his biggest break had been getting into the Beatles; his second biggest, getting out.
In talking about the film, Olivia Harrison makes no bones about how emotional it's been for her to see the many aspects of her husband's life translated to the screen.
"I thought I had this clear vision of what this story would look like on screen, but it's nothing like how I imagined it would be," she said, "even though it's accurate and honest and truthful."
Even about uncomfortable topics such as Harrison's 1974 solo tour that was savaged by many critics as well as its references to affairs he had after he married the former Olivia Arias, whom he met in 1974 when she was working in the L.A. offices of his Dark Horse Records label.
"Nobody asked me to bring up that subject," she said, "it just came up. It was really about being with someone who's in that position. I'm certainly not the only one who's been with somebody who's charismatic. It's a big diversion."
It's also just a tiny part of the overall story, which begins with Harrison as a fairly happy child, born into a large Liverpool family amid World War II. It follows his ride to the pinnacle of pop culture as a member of the most popular and creatively influential band in the world, his exit when the group disbanded in 1970 and on through his subsequent musical, cinematic, spiritual and philanthropic endeavors, which Scorsese covers, rough edges and all.
"Left to me, [the documentary] would have had no edges," Olivia Harrison said. "I really had to let go of that. Marty crafted it that way, and Dhani [her son with George] was also very helpful. He told me, 'You have to have the good and the bad, the black and the white; you can't just have it all nice.' ...It took a lot of getting used to. I had to see it several times before I could look at it and not wince. It is brutally honest."
It's also exceedingly admiring of a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist who for much of his career lived in the estimable shadows of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
In one of the most charming moments of the film, Harrison, the youngest Beatle, talks about writing his first song, "Don't Bother Me," from the group's 1963 album "With the Beatles." He summed it up as "an exercise. It's not a particularly great song." He simply felt at the time that "If John and Paul could write, then anyone can.... [It] showed me I just had to keep on writing and someday I'll write something good."
Scorsese also addresses Harrison's strong attraction to the classical music of India, which he explored extensively through his friendship with sitar master Ravi Shankar; the original rock music all-star benefit Concert for Bangla Desh that grew out of that relationship; his exploits in filmmaking through the Handmade Films company; and his latter-day role in the Traveling Wilburys supergroup. Harrison died on Nov. 29, 2001, at age 58.
Harrison's legacy will be explored further in an exhibition opening Oct. 11 at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, one that shares the title with Scorsese's film and Olivia Harrison's companion book.
Museum executive director Robert Santelli said the exhibition will underscore Harrison's sometimes underappreciated status as one of rock's greatest guitarists and his deeply felt spirituality.
"I see him as one of rock's first renaissance men," he said. "He was authentically interested in spiritualism and Eastern philosophy; he was experimenting with electronic sounds in the '60s. He did the 'Electronic Sound' album, which was the first Beatles solo album, but we forget that. We know him for 'All Things Must Pass' but don't know he was a great photographer. We know him for his interest in films for his work with Monty Python and his Handmade Films, but he also was a great gardener who was deeply interested in the natural world."
Olivia Harrison has loaned guitars, clothing Harrison wore onstage while touring with the Beatles and solo, original lyric sheets, letters, photos and other items for the display, billed as the first major exhibition focusing on Harrison as a Beatle and his life away from the group.
"It just so happened that everything was completed this year, which happens to be the 10th year since George died," she said from the estate in Oxfordshire, England, that George bought in 1969, where she was busy packing up items to be sent to the Grammy Museum.
"I'm a little nervous about it," Olivia said. "Sitting by the front door right now is a huge road box full of guitars that are going out tomorrow. Letting these things out — it's a big deal.
"Then again," she quickly added, a note of good-humored resignation creeping in over the worry, "George would say, 'It's only stuff.'"
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Cant wait to see this. Always loved George the best.
"FF, I've heard the droning about the Sawx being the baby dolls. Yeah, I get it, you guys invented baseball and suffered forever. I get it." -JearlPam0925
Cant wait to see this. Always loved George the best.
It's going to be one of the best music movies/documentaries and movies I've ever seen.
Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Cant wait to see this. Always loved George the best.
It's going to be one of the best music movies/documentaries and movies I've ever seen.
haha you certainly have high expectations for this thing
I just hope there's a bunch of George/Eric stuff in there.
"FF, I've heard the droning about the Sawx being the baby dolls. Yeah, I get it, you guys invented baseball and suffered forever. I get it." -JearlPam0925
Comments
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... c-20110823
George Harrison Hits the Screen in Scorsese Doc
Epic new film illuminates the inner life of the most enigmatic Beatle
As Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison dug through their archives to assemble the Beatles Anthology documentary in the mid-Nineties, Harrison made a private vow to his wife, Olivia: "One day, I'll do my own anthology." The ex-Beatle, who died in 2001, never got the chance, but his wife made sure his wish came true in grand fashion. In October, HBO will debut Martin Scorsese's two-part documentary, George Harrison: Living in a Material World – and Olivia has compiled a lavish companion book packed with unseen photos and diary entries. "I'm fairly awed by what Marty has put together," says Olivia. "It's a story that truly captures the essence of George."
The project had its start in 2005, when Olivia attended the London premiere of Scorsese's Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home. She shared her hope for a similar movie about her husband with the film's producer, Nigel Sinclair. After discussing possible directors for months, the pair "delicately approached" Scorsese. "To our surprise and delight, he said he was very intrigued by George's story," Sinclair recalls.
The center of the film is Harrison's spiritual quest, a search for meaning in life that began with a Beatlemania-era revelation that material success wasn't necessarily accompanied by fulfillment. "He was trying to find a way to simplicity, a way to live truthfully and compassionately," Scorsese says. "It was never a straight line, but that's not the point. I think he found an understanding: that there's no such thing as 'success' – there's just the path."
The documentary includes new interviews with McCartney, Starr, Yoko Ono, George Martin, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton (who recalls watching Harrison write "Here Comes the Sun") and many more. But Scorsese and his team relied heavily on archives kept by Harrison himself: footage of the Beatles on vacation; a recording of Harrison's first sitar lesson with Ravi Shankar; home movies of Harrison fooling around in his recording studio with his son Dhani. "We set up a little production office in our house," says Olivia. "George lived in the house for 30 years, and he would just throw things in this drawer and that drawer. So every cupboard had something in it." The production team set up research offices in New York and London, working for years to find footage and photographs, including every filmed Harrison interview they could track down.
From their sleepless Hamburg days to their Let It Be-era squabbles, the Beatles' story has been told again and again, so Scorsese took great pains to use rare or unseen footage for the first part of the film. "The scenes of them running from hotel rooms and airports and such are just a little bit different than the ones you've seen," says Sinclair. "He approached the Beatles story from George's perspective, so it becomes a more inside, more first-person experience."
The film doesn't shy from Harrison's darker side, showing footage of a ravaged performance from his 1974 solo tour, and hinting at challenges in his marriage. "He never said he was a saint, but he always said he was a sinner," says Olivia. "He wanted to do everything in life. He really did."
The surviving Beatles provide some of the film's most powerful moments: McCartney makes an impassioned argument that anyone who thinks only he and Lennon were important in the group is wildly wrong; Starr begins to weep when he recalls visiting Harrison as the guitarist battled terminal lung cancer.
The post-Beatles section of the film has the most surprises, from intimate footage of Traveling Wilburys jamming to Olivia's harrowing account of a 1999 home invasion by a violent, deranged fan. It also gives equal weight to Harrison's nonmusical ventures: his work as a movie producer; his motor-racing fandom; his loving efforts to restore his country estate. "George thought hard about how to live his life after being a Beatle," says Sinclair, "and what I take away from this film is that he figured it out."
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/photo ... n-20110902
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Also...3.5 hours!!!
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... e-20110905
George Harrison Documentary Premieres at Telluride
Olivia Harrison opens up about the making of 'Living In a Material World' at first screenings
In the ending minutes of the documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Ringo Starr has what he calls a "Barbara fucking Walters" moment. Wiping away tears, Starr recalls the last words his lifelong pal and Beatles bandmate said to him before he died.
The Martin Scorsese-directed, five-years-in-the-making Living in the Material World premiered over Labor Day weekend at the Telluride Film Festival, now in its 38th year. The 210 minute (3 1/2 hour) two-part documentary, which coincides with the 10-year anniversary of Harrison's death in 2001 from lung cancer, will begin airing on HBO starting October 5th, but screened three times at the film festival, including a free showing on the outdoor screen in Telluride's town square, Elks Park.
"It's been five years and it really took a good two years before I could just open my hand a bit," George's widow Olivia Harrison said at a screening Q&A of sharing her late husband's keepsakes in research for the film. "There were letters that George never imagined his mother saved or that would be read. They were so revealing and just so honest; that really was the beginning of this project."
One particular archived postcard came from a trip Harrison took with Paul McCartney, a school friend before the Beatles, in their teens. "They went on a hitchhiking holiday in Wales and he wrote a postcard home saying how much distance they had covered in a day, how proud they were and where they slept that night." Olivia recalls. "It was just so sweet. All these things had been saved and had been in a tin box in the attic, a rusty old box that I opened, and I closed it and left it there for a very long time."
Olivia now laughs at the initial struggle she had with letting go of the personal relics. "There were these little time capsules everywhere around the house – there was even a song titled 'I'm Just the Jealous Kind' – and it took me a very long time to bring them out from where they were. In fact, if this whole team and Marty hadn't been so patient this movie would not have been made. I would show them the letters and then take them home."
Starr, however, wasn't the only one to weep during his interview, although his tears are the only ones caught on camera. Tom Petty describes Harrison's fever in forming the Traveling Wilburys, how the group's track 'Handle With Care' was coined, and a phone call from George after their Wilburys bandmate Roy Orbison passed away. ("Aren't you glad it wasn't you?" Harrison asked Petty.) "Tom Petty stayed for three hours; he wept," producer Nigel Sinclair says of the interviews with George's inner circle – McCartney, Klaus Voormann, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Jim Keltner, Eric Clapton and even the wife they shared Pattie Boyd – that make up the film.
"Every single interview resulted in tears," producer Margaret Bodde adds. "And this is years after George's passing, because everyone was connecting with their true love of George and he touched them all in very obviously special way." While he was known as the "quiet Beatle," Scorsese's documentary shows that George undeniably left a loud mark far beyond the riffs of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
Other memorable moments include an afro-less Phil Spector describing the making of All Things Must Pass, Harrison's six-time platinum 1970 solo album released following the break-up of the Beatles.
"There were a few titles that came up, but it really is about living in the material – it's exactly what it's about," says Olivia about choosing Harrison's less-popular 1973 follow-up for the title of the documentary.
"We had All Things Must Pass – we obviously played with that." Sinclair says of picking the title. "Olivia was concerned because it was the title of an album, and not to make people think that was the making of the album. And then everyone played with other names and this name fought its way to the top of the pack and held its own. It became what the movie is about and I guess that's why George chose that title for the album."
While the film remarkably captures Harrison's use of music to help him on his own spiritual quest, beyond the materialism that came with unending Beatles fame, the hardest part to stomach is Olivia's recounting of the night an intruder repeatedly stabbed Harrison in his own home.
"I was reluctant because I didn't want it to be the redefining factor of his life," Olivia says of bravely deciding to detail how she fought back with the world upon Scorsese's request. Dhani, Olivia and George's only son, even admits in the film that the baffling incident took years off his father's life, after his fight with cancer.
"First half I can watch quite easily because I'm watching another life," Olivia admits of the final cut, "and then when the second half comes in, now I have to leave. Although I imagined what this documentary would be like and I guided them and I gave them a timeline of the important things in George's life, I still had no idea it was going to be 'this' film. Marty just made something far beyond what I imagined. Certainly, not the movie I would have made because it would have been completely happy shiny people holding hands. It was Dhani who really said, 'You know, you have to have the dark and the light, you have to show all the sides, you can't sanctify him or vilify him, but George was a big one for contrast."
Adds Olivia: "I feel lighter now that it's done and it's out. I know it's something George wanted done and it's honest. There isn't anything in it that's not true."
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,
you cant set aside 4 hours over 2 nights to watch it?
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Also, I can't wait for the book! Have it on Amazon pre-order. I just hope they announce something for a soundtrack. I'd love to hear those unreleased songs.
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Yeah, you were right, way too short. Was expecting more from a cover story. I might have to buy the book, this was such a tease in RS this month.
9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,
You'll want to buy the book. It says unreleased/never-before-seen photographs and letters.
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
If you can manage to get on George's site sometime today/tonight, there's an exclusive clip from the movie. I've tried to get on but people must've crashed the site to watch it.
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
http://www.georgeharrison.com/media/vid ... -comes-sun
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Awesome! And how much does the whole deluxe set cost?
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Did anyone else who got it notice how heavy it is?
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1113829/fullcredits#cast
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Well, they could only use archival interviews of Lennon in the film...and I bet they simply couldn't find any interview material of Lennon discussing George specifically...just my guess. Yoko's credited, so I'm sure Lennon plays a big role in the story.
It is interesting, though...because shortly before Lennon's death, he felt slighted by George, due to the fact that John was barely mentioned in George's autobiography, "I Me Mine."
Yep, he was very angry at George about that but George said he really did love John. John had George play on the Imagine album and there is video footage of it.
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
http://fashionindie.com/beatles-reunion ... ial-world/
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... 3132.story
Documentary examines George Harrison
'Living in the Material World,' Martin Scorsese's film on HBO, reveals an unvarnished look at the late Beatle, getting a boost from widow Olivia Harrison's cooperation.
When Martin Scorsese and Olivia Harrison first sat down about five years ago to strategize about a documentary on the life of George Harrison, both quickly zeroed in on a letter the young Beatle wrote to his family at the height of Beatlemania.
"It was a letter George had written when he was not more than 22," Harrison said of the man to whom she was married for 23 years before his death from cancer a decade ago. "It was in 1965, and the Beatles would have been really cresting at that point. He was writing home and told his family, 'I know that this isn't it. I knew I was going to be famous, but now I know I can reach the real top of what man can achieve, which is self-realization.' He knew then that [material reward] wasn't it."
That letter figures into a pivotal moment in Scorsese's film, "George Harrison: Living in the Material World," which premieres on HBO over two nights Wednesday and Thursday to accommodate its 31/2-hour length.
In the scene, George says how lucky the Beatles were to acquire so many of the material goods early on that most people spend their entire lives yearning for, because they learned relatively young how hollow such things ultimately ring.
Olivia Harrison gave Scorsese and his team virtual carte blanche access to home movies, family photos, audio recordings and other items from her husband's estate for use in the film, which paints a richly detailed and unvarnished picture of the man initially pigeonholed as "the quiet Beatle."
A more accurate sobriquet might have been "the spiritual Beatle" to reflect the inward quest that seemed to capture Harrison early in a life about which he once famously said that his biggest break had been getting into the Beatles; his second biggest, getting out.
In talking about the film, Olivia Harrison makes no bones about how emotional it's been for her to see the many aspects of her husband's life translated to the screen.
"I thought I had this clear vision of what this story would look like on screen, but it's nothing like how I imagined it would be," she said, "even though it's accurate and honest and truthful."
Even about uncomfortable topics such as Harrison's 1974 solo tour that was savaged by many critics as well as its references to affairs he had after he married the former Olivia Arias, whom he met in 1974 when she was working in the L.A. offices of his Dark Horse Records label.
"Nobody asked me to bring up that subject," she said, "it just came up. It was really about being with someone who's in that position. I'm certainly not the only one who's been with somebody who's charismatic. It's a big diversion."
It's also just a tiny part of the overall story, which begins with Harrison as a fairly happy child, born into a large Liverpool family amid World War II. It follows his ride to the pinnacle of pop culture as a member of the most popular and creatively influential band in the world, his exit when the group disbanded in 1970 and on through his subsequent musical, cinematic, spiritual and philanthropic endeavors, which Scorsese covers, rough edges and all.
"Left to me, [the documentary] would have had no edges," Olivia Harrison said. "I really had to let go of that. Marty crafted it that way, and Dhani [her son with George] was also very helpful. He told me, 'You have to have the good and the bad, the black and the white; you can't just have it all nice.' ...It took a lot of getting used to. I had to see it several times before I could look at it and not wince. It is brutally honest."
It's also exceedingly admiring of a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist who for much of his career lived in the estimable shadows of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
In one of the most charming moments of the film, Harrison, the youngest Beatle, talks about writing his first song, "Don't Bother Me," from the group's 1963 album "With the Beatles." He summed it up as "an exercise. It's not a particularly great song." He simply felt at the time that "If John and Paul could write, then anyone can.... [It] showed me I just had to keep on writing and someday I'll write something good."
Scorsese also addresses Harrison's strong attraction to the classical music of India, which he explored extensively through his friendship with sitar master Ravi Shankar; the original rock music all-star benefit Concert for Bangla Desh that grew out of that relationship; his exploits in filmmaking through the Handmade Films company; and his latter-day role in the Traveling Wilburys supergroup. Harrison died on Nov. 29, 2001, at age 58.
Harrison's legacy will be explored further in an exhibition opening Oct. 11 at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, one that shares the title with Scorsese's film and Olivia Harrison's companion book.
Museum executive director Robert Santelli said the exhibition will underscore Harrison's sometimes underappreciated status as one of rock's greatest guitarists and his deeply felt spirituality.
"I see him as one of rock's first renaissance men," he said. "He was authentically interested in spiritualism and Eastern philosophy; he was experimenting with electronic sounds in the '60s. He did the 'Electronic Sound' album, which was the first Beatles solo album, but we forget that. We know him for 'All Things Must Pass' but don't know he was a great photographer. We know him for his interest in films for his work with Monty Python and his Handmade Films, but he also was a great gardener who was deeply interested in the natural world."
Olivia Harrison has loaned guitars, clothing Harrison wore onstage while touring with the Beatles and solo, original lyric sheets, letters, photos and other items for the display, billed as the first major exhibition focusing on Harrison as a Beatle and his life away from the group.
"It just so happened that everything was completed this year, which happens to be the 10th year since George died," she said from the estate in Oxfordshire, England, that George bought in 1969, where she was busy packing up items to be sent to the Grammy Museum.
"I'm a little nervous about it," Olivia said. "Sitting by the front door right now is a huge road box full of guitars that are going out tomorrow. Letting these things out — it's a big deal.
"Then again," she quickly added, a note of good-humored resignation creeping in over the worry, "George would say, 'It's only stuff.'"
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
I just hope there's a bunch of George/Eric stuff in there.