Lord of the Rings director brings the Great War to life in 3D colour
Oscar winner Peter Jackson given ‘unfettered’ access to museum archives for film to mark centenary
THOUSANDS of pupils will be invited to be the first to watch a landmark 3D film commemorating the First World War.
Directed by Oscar winner Peter Jackson and comprising restored and colourised archive footage from the Imperial War Museums (IWM), They Shall Not Grow Old will be screened for school groups at the same time as the official premier at the BFI London Film Festival on Oct 16.
It will also be shown to thousands of secondary schoolchildren across the country as part of the free Into Film festival in early November before it airs on BBC One on Armistice Day, on the centenary of the end of the war.
Details of the screening came as General the Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, urged schools across the country to get behind the project.
He told The Daily Telegraph: “I am all for getting out new education material and getting films like this out to children and the young generation so they understand how ghastly war is and we make sure that we never have to do this sort of thing again. Given the quality and breadth of the Imperial War Museums’ archives this sounds like exactly the sort of thing they should be doing
‘I wanted to reach through the fog of time and pull these men into the modern world, [to] regain their humanity’
and I’m very much looking forward to seeing the film.”
Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, added that the project would counteract a “real lack of awareness from the younger generation” about the First World War. Jackson, the director best known for his Lord of the Rings trilogy, has created the film in 3D, remastering 100-year-old footage to bring original footage from the conflict to life, for a film designed to reach a young generation more acquainted with fantasy epics than British military history.
Jackson said: “I wanted to reach through the fog of time and pull these men into the modern world, so they can regain their humanity once more – rather than be seen only as Charlie Chaplin-type figures in the vintage archive film.
“We’ve made a movie to show the experience of what it was like to fight in the First World War – not strategy, tactics or battles, but the human experi-
ence of being at war. I hope it will give students around the UK a real sense of what it was like.”
The film marks the culmination of a five-year arts programme, 14-18 NOW, commemorating the centenary of the conflict. The footage is accompanied by the voices of veterans, some recorded half a century ago for the acclaimed 1964 BBC series, The Great War.
Sarah Goodfellow, a producer for 1418 NOW, told The Telegraph that Jackson had been given “unfettered” access to the archives of the IWM.
“We have never opened up the archive on this scale before. The result is quite extraordinary,” she said.
Every school in the country will also receive a digital copy of the film and 1418 NOW is creating lessons plans, discussion guidelines and educational packs for history teachers.
Tim Blake, assistant principal at Bedford Free School, where a remembrance parade is already planned for Armistice Day, told The Telegraph that he was looking forward to the project.
He said: “These first-hand accounts will enrich our pupils’ already extensive knowledge of the First World War and will give them a real sense of what it was like to fight and live on the Western Front.
“It will also allow pupils to reflect upon how historians continue to view and interpret one of the most important events in modern history.”