The Somme in HD, as if it were filmed a week ago
Lord of the Rings director hails stunning restoration of First World War footage for cinemas and BBC TV
‘It will give a sense of what it was like to be in this war from the perspective of the people that were there’
WERE it not for the uniforms, it could be a scene from a modern-day conflict: British soldiers sharing a joke and a cigarette as they enjoy a brief respite from battle.
Remarkably, the footage is a century old. Peter Jackson, the Oscar-winning director best known for his Lord of the Rings trilogy, has created a film from the archives of the Imperial War Museum which promises a fresh perspective on the First World War.
Jackson and his team have used digital technology to bring original footage from the Somme to life, for a film designed to reach a generation more acquainted with Jackson’s fantasy epics than British military history.
The results will be screened in cinemas, broadcast by BBC One on Armistice Day, and a copy will be sent to every secondary school in Britain.
Jackson said the remastered and hand-colourised film is “stunning” to see. “We all know what First World War footage looks like: it’s sped up, it’s fast, like Charlie Chaplin. It’s grainy, jumpy, scratchy, and it immediately blocks you from actually connecting with the events on screen,” he said.
“But the results we have got are absolutely unbelievable. They are way beyond what I expected. This footage looks like it was shot in the last week or two, with high definition cameras. The faces of the men just jump out at you. The people come to life in this film.”
The footage will be accompanied by interviews with veterans, some recorded more than half a century ago for the acclaimed 1964 BBC series The Great War. Jackson combed through 600 hours of audio and said he had chosen not to focus on “the strategy, battles, the historical aspects of the war” but to let the soldiers talk about their experiences.
“They are interviews I’d never heard before and they talk in a way that is surprising. We have a cliched version of the war. One hundred years later we have made up our own minds about what the First World War was like. But it’s very surprising when you listen to the voices of the men who fought the war – how they had to live it, what they had to eat, how they slept at night, how they coped with fear,” the director said.
“It will give a sense of what it was like to be in this war 100 years ago [from] the perspective of the people that were actually there.”
Diane Lees, the director-general of the Imperial War Museum, said she hoped Jackson’s fame would help to draw in a young audience. Colourising is key, she said, “because what we want to do is take film that is very often dismissed by audiences because it is black and white”.
The film marks the culmination of a five-year arts programme, 14-18 NOW, commemorating the conflict. Previous projects include We’re Here Because We’re Here, in 2016, when 1,000 volunteers, dressed in Army uniform, began appearing in public spaces, each representing a soldier who died at the Somme on that day 100 years earlier.