They Shall Not Grow Old: A New View of WWI

We call it the “Forgotten War,” but thanks to the many projects and programs that have taken place during the four-year observance of its centenary, World War I has finally received the attention it deserves. One project, in particular, is the film, They Shall Not Grow Old, directed and produced by Peter Jackson, well-known for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies based on the J. R. R. Tolkien novels.

They Shall Not Grow Old is a documentary that features digitally restored, colorized versions of movies shot during the war on the battle fields. It is narrated with the aid of interviews recorded with World War I veterans during the 1960s.

The story is told from the perspective of the British military engagement with the Germans. Peter Jackson thought that to include more country’s soldiers would dilute the experience of the film. Incidentally, since the film was commissioned by British organizations, it makes sense that the story would be told from that perspective.

Released by Warner Brothers and distributed by Fathom Events, the film broke its own box office records, earning $2.3 million at the North American release on December 17, 2018 at more than 1,000 theaters. They scheduled a second event for December 27, 2018.

As the theater darkened, Peter Jackson gave an introduction, and he was also featured in a 30-minute wrap-up at the end of the film when he revealed interesting facts about how the documentary came to be and how its effects were achieved.

Jackson said that he has been interested in WWI since he was a kid, and that his grandfather served in the war. He recalled that in 2014, he was approached by representatives from the British World War I Centenary Arts Commissions’ 14-18 Now to make a film about WWI. They didn’t know exactly what kind of film they wanted, but it was imperative that the original footage housed at the Imperial War Museum be included, and that it be used in a unique and original way. This was a daunting proposition for Jackson who wondered how he would make the finished product both unique and original.

Jackson decided to have his company, Wingnut Films, use computer software to restore the film. He obtained a three-to-four-minute clip and his experts performed a test on it, which turned out very well. This encouraged him to take on the project.

Voices of Real World War I Veterans as Narrators

The film contains no formal narration by historians. The voices heard are those from actual veterans from the war, recorded decades later.

One of those veterans said that most young British men were excited to go and fight. Another said many Brits volunteered willingly, not knowing if their jobs would be there when they got back. Yet another recalled that many young men lied about their ages—and some were encouraged by the recruiters to do so. Here are some more recollections:

The British military didn’t have uniforms for all the soldiers at first. The clothing came in piecemeal. One soldier stated that he wore the same uniform for four years. Interestingly, some of the men wore kilts.

After the soldiers received all of their gear, including a heavy coat and mess kit, their packs weighed 109 lbs. The men spent months training and getting fit enough to carry that load for extended periods of time. They also had to figure out how to take care of themselves, learning how to cook and to mend their own socks.

Belgium was the first stop when they got to Europe, and when the British soldiers marched through the country, they found that it had been devastated. From there, it was on to France.

Both sides dug intricate systems of trenches, forming complicated mazes. Soldiers could get lost in them. For the British, the trench shifts were four days long, with two hours on and four off. The men suffered from exhaustion and they sometimes fell asleep standing up.

They shared the trenches with lice and rats. They described the lice as looking like little lobsters. The men would try burning them out of the seams of their clothing, but they couldn’t get all of the eggs, so the lice would repopulate very quickly. In addition to the lice, multitudes of rats fed on the dead men, and the soldiers would kill the vermin, stacking them on immense piles.

Casualties and Suffering – For Animals, too

The loss of human life was certainly heartbreaking but so was the plight of the war horses. If the young men had no idea why they were there, the horses knew even less. One scene depicts a massive explosion, and as the smoke cleared, several riders and their steeds were revealed flat on the ground. One horse struggled to get to its feet several times but fell back down again. The accompanying veteran narrator stated that losing a horse was like losing a friend.

Of the many ways to kill other human beings in World War I was poison gas. The gas didn’t always kill, though, it blinded many, mostly temporarily. One scene shows a line of blind men walking. There were several types of gas, with mustard gas actually being green in color. Many of the men had been issued gas masks, but they could get clogged with mud and malfunction. For those men who didn’t have masks, they were advised to urinate on their handkerchiefs and hold them to their noses.

One of the many discomforts the men suffered, was frostbite. In the winter, their feet would get wet and their boots would freeze to their feet. In addition to frostbite, was another malady called trench foot. This would result in swelling and sores, and sometimes required amputation.

The colorized film shows the faces of the soldiers in such clarity that has never been seen before. On many of those faces is depicted sheer terror. One veteran said he sympathized with the rabbits, because he now knew how they felt being terrified.

Hygiene quickly went out the window. The men had been issued toothbrushes, and at first, they also used them to shine their buttons. As the war dragged on, they didn’t care about shining their buttons anymore. Many of the men came to war with rotted teeth and those only got worse as their days at war went slowly by.

No Matter the Nationality, They Were All Just People

Regarding the enemy, one soldier said that the Bavarians were the most-decent of all the Germans. He said the Bavarian snipers would fire, but not with the intention to hit anyone. He said the Wurtenburgers and Bavarians were the most civilized of the German soldiers.

The time in France was not all spent fighting, though. There was some time for recreating, too. The soldiers would play all kinds of sports. Captain Wilfred “Billie” Nevill introduced the kicking of a football in a forward fashion to encourage the soldiers to advance across the battlefields.

Many soldiers visited brothels. Many used beer, gambling, and smokes to help the time pass and to find comfort in the face of terror.

At one point in the film, scenes which had been shown earlier were repeated. These included footage of soldiers gathered together in groups. The closeups of smiling young faces, which the audience had earlier, alternated with those of fallen soldiers. Because the film had been colorized, these casualties were often gruesome in appearance.

More than one veteran said that he didn’t fear dying. Most feared being wounded and losing a limb, or worse. A particular nightmarish injury could occur if one were the victim of a flame thrower, a killing machine introduced by the Germans during World War I.

When the British captured the Germans, they found that some of their prisoners spoke English. The mutual foes would converse and commiserate about how useless war is. The Germans were regarded brave and stubborn, but they became despondent when they realized they were losing the war. They couldn’t care less who won; they just wanted the war to end.

On November 11, 1918, the shooting stopped with the signing of the armistice between the allies and Germany. The battlefields became deadly silent. There was no celebration. There were no cheers. Some soldiers felt as though they had been fired and didn’t know what to do next. Many came home to mass unemployment and discrimination by employers. The soldiers couldn’t believe that no one wanted to talk about the war. People didn’t realize how horrible war was.

30-Minute Wrap-Up by Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson said that his grandfather fought in World War I. The film is dedicated to him. Jackson has a large collection of World War I memorabilia, including many military uniforms.

More than 100 hours of film and 600 hours of interviews were made available to Jackson and his crew. In restoring the film, they found that some reels had been damaged over time, and some footage was blurry because it had been duplicated. Also, as it ages, film shrinks and warps, and this causes fluttering on the screen. They discovered that the speed at which the camera men cranked their cameras hadn’t been consistent. Jackson and his crew experimented with running the film at different speeds and discovered that when they got it right, the scenes came to life. There were some very dark and very light scenes that might have been disregarded, but they were able to restore those very effectively.

Regarding the colorization of the film, Jackson wanted to be very authentic. He used his World War I uniform collection as guides. He said it was difficult to get the khakis and greys just right, and the grass and foliage was especially challenging. Jackson spent several days in France taking thousands of photographs in the locations of the many battles. At one point, he found himself in the exact spot of one of the scenes in the film. Of the many men featured in that scene, Jackson said that most of them would perish within 30 minutes of filming.

As mentioned before, the voices heard in the film are those of men who actually fought in the war. The exception to this is the voices that were dubbed over the scenes where it can be seen that men are speaking. Jackson’s staff used lipreaders to figure out what the men were saying. In addition to dubbing voices, Foley artists replicated the sounds like marching through mud. Real artillery was fired for the sounds of the explosions.

Jackson Wants Us to Talk to Our Elders About Our Own Connections to the War

Jackson said that They Shall Not Grow Old was made by a non-historian for an audience of non-historians. He encourages the viewers to find out if any of their relatives died or served in World War I. He believes most people will discover their own connections to the war. Of course, the people who served in the war are no longer alive, but many of their children are. Those individuals are at the end of their own lives now, so it is important to talk to them before their generation passes away.

Have you discovered your ties to World War I? Share with us by commenting below.