Label: Lionsgate LGD94765 2 DVD's • Disc 1 George Harrison - Living in the Material World: Part 1 • Disc 2 George Harrison - Living in the Material World: Part 2 plus special features The first section of Martin Scorsese's documentary concentrates on the young George Harrison and the Beatles. It's enlivened by new interviews - with Paul McCartney, Harrison's family and musicians galore - but the archive footage, although beautifully restored and clean, is short on footage of songs. There are snippets of interesting observations about Harrison, who died in 2001. One brother, for example, remembers him as "a cocky little guy" while record producer simply refers to him as "a bit of a loner". The range of people interviewed is wide - including the Beatles press chief Derek Taylor and his wife Joan - who talk about his pleasant personality but also his battles with addiction. Friends outside the music business, including motor racing driver Jackie Stewart, and Eric Idle, also chip in about his life outside of music, including his love of cars and cinema. There are a lot of talking heads in this DVD. Harrison's drug-taking, his spiritualism, the attack and stabbing by an intruder and the final grim losing battle with cancer are all dealt with interestingly in what, overall, is a sympathetic portrait of a troubled, gentle man. One aspect that doesn't shine through fully enough is his sense of humour. He loved jokes and banter and didn't take himself seriously. George Melly once told a story of how when he and the Feetwarmers band were working with Derek Taylor, they called in to see Harrison ahead of a performance at the 1973 Reading Rock Festival. Harrison turned up backstage, helped with assembling the drum kit and then, to see if anyone in the 30,000 crowd would notice, swept the stage. He loved the fact that no one in a rock crowd noticed it was him. This quirky side of him only comes out partially in the film, when the maestro drummer Jim Keltner says: "George Harrison was always having fun." The bonus features include a performance of the lovely song Here Comes The Sun and DVD, although seen on a smaller screen than the cinema, may be the best format to see what is something of an epic at 208-minutes long.
© 2011 David Laurie