This is a documentary by Martin Scorsese from 2011 so it has taken some time to be shown on Sky Arts. I never knew of it's existence until now. It is a long film, nearly three and a half hours. I was only going to look at the section at the end about him setting up Handmade Films, but I became engrossed at all the early stuff with The Beatles. So much I had not seen before. For a start I didn't remember he was only seventeen when the band was in Hamburg, turning eighteen whilst there. There were clips of Astrid Kirchherr showing us lots of the photos she took, especially that one of George and John.
We saw recorded performances of "I Saw Her Standing There" (remembering dancing to this on my last day at school) in July 1963 and "This Boy" and "You Can't Do That" from 1964. We were told about the lightning recording of their second album "With The Beatles" released in November 1964. I bought it the week it came on sale at a shop at the top of Kings Street in Hammersmith and played it on repeat.
Paul and George talked about their residency at the Hammersmith Odeon from December 1964 into January 1965. I walked past there on my way to work every day they were there and wondered why I didn't go. It was up to Eric Clapton (who did go) to remind me That you could not hear anything for the screams and you would be a solitary male amongst very young teenage girls.
George martin talks about the recording sessions and Paul mentions George's riff which makes "And I Love Her". I didn't know they played a summer season in Bournemouth in 1963 and 1964. Eric talks about his friendship with the band and there are clips of George with Pattie Boyd. Pattie talks about their time together and looked great. I skipped all the stuff about George and India with Ravi Shankar.
But there is a great passage when Eric Clapton describes his "isolated recording" on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" when he first turned down George's request to contribute. George was maturing as a songwriter with "Something" and "Here Comes The Sun".
At last the documentary moved seamlessly on to George meeting The Pythons when he loved "Monty Python and The Holy Grail". Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam tell us about their following film "The Life of Brian" and how EMI pulled the plug, leading to George mortgaging his house to pay for the filming. There is much more about his Handmade Films in Michael Palin's book "Halfway to Hollywood". The percussionist Ray Cooper, a good friend of George, and Terry Gilliam talked about "Time Bandits", "Mona Lisa", "Withnail and I" and "The Long Good Friday", all classic handmade films.
There was a nice part about The Travelling Wilburys, quite a bit from Tom Petty. I liked those clips from the studio making the recording, "Handle Me With Care" etc.
There was lots from Olivia Harrison about her husband, how he was "always a challenge" when it came to other women. But they had a good marriage. I didn't know that George actually became a passionate gardener. I had forgotten that they were attacked in the middle of the night in their own home by an intruder. Apparently it could have been a lot worse than the injuries George sustained.
It was left to Ringo to tell us about his visit to the critically ill George in Switzerland. Ringo had to leave to see his ill son in America and George asked if he needed him to go with him. That was George.
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