My WWI documentary is a filmic poem and an antiwar film. I wrote a poem years ago and tried to get it published. I worked on it once in a while, got comment from a professional poet and he said to just keep working on it. And so I did. Until one day I stumbled into the idea of making a documentary, and then a WWI documentary, and then a documentary built around my fanciful poem, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" (trailer). To be clear, the title of this blog is in an order I would suggest to watch these three films and has nothing to do with any lack of knowing the great quality of the other two filmmakers!
I've written about the experience of making this film previously. I am working on a film companion book for this film, which is about half written. It took me six months of editing to finish the documentary with years of research under my belt in acquiring public domain media and information. Something I continued throughout the production of the film. I had for several years intended on turning the poem it is based on into a minimalist animation. But no animator would touch it without more money than I could come up with. The finished film itself I had hope of eventually reproducing it with much better resources. Seeing what Peter Jackson did with his film makes that prospect even more desirable.
"Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" is a film that only came into existence because of having Long Covid acquired from COVID-19, for at least the second time. Having first acquired this miserable disease and first noticing its symptoms on February 9, 2020. I eventually wrote a book about it: "Suffering Long Covid".
What I'm writing about here today, is regarding what happened over this past week. I'm suggesting an order one might watch these films in. Even if you do not (yet) have access to view my film, it will still make it's point if you watch these other two. I'm sure there are many good WWI documentaries out there. But this blog here involves only three. Mine, Peter Jackson's and one from Double-Band Films about photographer/Lance Corporal George . I just finished watching that one.
About "The Man Who Shot the Great War" (2014), from Acorn TV:
"Premiering in North America December 19th. Among the thousands of men from Britain and Ireland who fought on the battlefields of the First World War was Lance Corporal George Hackney, who did something remarkable: he brought his camera with him to war. Described as a "photographic discovery of the century," the images he took captured the brutal realities of the front lines and fueled a moral quest that altered the course of his life."
The other day I watched Peter Jackson's WWI documentary, "They Shall Not Grow Old" (2018). From Warner Brothers Pictures' Youtube channel:
"The acclaimed documentary is an extraordinary look at the soldiers and events of the Great War, using film footage captured at the time, now presented as the world has never seen. By utilizing state-of-the-art restoration, colorization and 3D technologies, and pulling from 600 hours of BBC archival interviews, Jackson puts forth an intensely gripping, immersive and authentic experience through the eyes and voices of the British soldiers who lived it."
Three films about WWI. The "Great War", the "War to End All Wars".
My film as I said, took me, alone with what small resources I have in filmmaking and editing, took me six months of editing as I was coming out of a rough winter with long covid. My son got me playing a video game on my desktop video editing workstation and I did that for months. Part of an hour the first time until I was playing all day long after a few weeks (months?) and then realized I was not only able to get out of my living room recliner chair I'd spent most of the winter in just watching TV, dozing off and on and not feeling well, but I was actively engaged in this Fall Out 4 game. I'd put 700 hours into it.
It was time to actually do something. Unable still to be able to handle a production with actors (and a schedule), the idea came to me to make a film of some sort that I could handle doing all by myself, on my schedule, if and when I could, whenever. In considering what to do, I landed upon the project I eventually finished. Twice after months of editing I wanted to quit, give up as it is exacting work of digitally splice media together, AI colorization, multiple layers and tracks and sophisticated audio work in syncing music and sounds and creatively doing Folly work, making sounds that come from one source being made to sound like another. But finally, I finished it.
I sent it to a few festivals and immediately that week got an "Official Selection" from one. Shortly thereafter, the next week, it won an award for "Best Documentary". I entered more festivals. Then it won "Best Experimental Film" at another festival. I entered more and continued winning, not all festivals, but more than I had ever expected. Far more than my previous and narrative film, "Gumdrop", a short horror. Yes, from horror film (really more of a film noir), to the horrors of our perhaps our greatest horror in wars in human history.
As I indicated above, I detail this all elsewhere as I had to hire voice actors and a poet to translate my poem, a center point to the project, for the voice actors to read. At one point I hired a sound engineer to clean up what I could not in digitizing Ravel's "Bolero from an original Polydor double record set from 1930 I bought online from a seller in Paris.
I used some visual media in the film that were never seen before like this because they were not of pristine or perfect quality or focus, all of which played into the "poetic" nature of the film as not just documentary but fantasy and visual poetry. That is important, because it has a lot to do with why I'm writing today about this and the other two documentaries.
In my film you can notice the French always face and move to the right, which the Germans, their opponents in Verdun, France in this film, always facing and moving toward the enemy, the French, to the left. From the perspective of the French in the film, when they are headed to the right of screen they are moving toward, entering the war. When to the left, they are moving away from, leaving the war. When the visuals are blurry, the poem visuals are referring poetically to the "fog of war" and such metaphorical elements and considerations.
In moving from my film therefore to Peter Jackson's tour de force of his, "They Shall Not Grow Old", documentary, the effect is intense. With all that Jackson has available to him, the money, the team/teams, the quality of media he could acquire, the legal team for handling all that, and his special effects professionals, what he could produce is truly, as I've said elsewhere... awe inspiring. I'm not here to review his film.
However, Rotten Tomatoes said:
"An impressive technical achievement with a walloping emotional impact, They Shall Not Grow Old pays brilliant cinematic tribute to the sacrifice of a generation. Read critic reviews"
I was stunned at the amazing quality Peter Jackson turned out in this film. I deeply and intricately know what it takes to do what he did in that film. I'm speechless, to be clear. Watching probably any WWI documentary prior to Jackson's could most likely give you the same effect as seeing my film and then his. But the difference in the quality of experience and visuals, not to mention the high quality level of his Folly work and audio dubbing, are truly inspiring. And that is all outside of the effect of the subject matter itself.
On "The Man Who Shot The Great War", Film Affinity said about it:
"Revealing for the first time what has been described as 'the photographic discovery of the century', this documentary uncovers the remarkable story of the Belfast soldier who took his camera to war in 1915 and how his experiences were to have a dramatic and unexpected outcome many years later."
It is a touching film about an amazing find so long after WWI.
Watching these three films in this order, for me anyway, was a very rewarding experience. My film is likely, for most people anyway, a bit of history and imagery you have never seen or known about.That is mixed up with a humanist, antiwar message through the people that runs throughout it and read by a female French actor as Ravel's Truck, whom he had named "Adelaide".
Ravel's imaginary actions in the film brings the fear and evolution of a trench soldier into sharp focus. the end of the film with its long scrolling list of all wars on earth is a stark reminder of who we are and what our history has been. Evoking the question, why should this continue and how to stop it.
Going then into the Jackson film, the realization of his film is very impactful. It's almost like he went back in time and shot these war moments with a film crew. His ADR (Automated dialogue replacement, voice dubbing), his Foley work (sound effects), and his colorization and visual enhancements are impeccable. It's a moving film, in ways beyond my own film, while a perfect adjunct to it.
Then moving on to the George Hackney film and what it uncovers is touching and amazing in entirely different ways and I highly recommend it.
These are short films, offering us a bird's eye view, even closer, and in ways no bird and few humans have envisioned. It is a set of films from a time long forgotten, which is repeating itself every decades since. We are changing our ways of war. They are becoming more exactly, civilians are not often "collateral damage" as they used to be. So often today, victims due greatly to specifically targeting them on purpose.
Such as Putin from Russia has so often done in his illegal war in Ukraine. And we are becoming more "green" in war with a realization that every weapon discharged is costing humanity in damage to our environment. And all too often, to civilians years or decades later in unexploded and lost munitions and toxic chemicals.
But the one thing that remains is, the cost to the human psyche, the friends and families of those soldiers and the damages to our world and ongoing blemishes to our history of humanity.
Cheers! Sláinte!
I wish us all the very best!
Films:
"Pvt. Ravel's Bolero", available exclusively on ThrilzTV.com
