George Harrison: Living In The Material World is released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 10.
1.There is enough unseen footage, photos, audio outtakes and new interviews to satisfy even the most devoted Beatles fans.
Five years in the making, Living In The Material World contains new contributions from a small army of George's nearest and dearest. Apart from the somewhat expected absence of Bob Dylan, there are new interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, George Martin, Yoko Ono, Tom Petty, Phil Spector, Jim Keltner, Jackie Stewart and Dhani and Olivia Harrison. The latter (the film's producer) has done an incredible job of sifting through the archives to deliver never-seen-before images, home movies and, perhaps most potently, a series of letters George wrote to his mother during the Beatlemania years. Narrated by his son Dhani, each details the pandemonium that followed the group wherever they went, the frustrations that came with global adoration and the beginnings of his journey into Eastern spiritualism. Anyone familiar with the vast Beatles Anthology documentary will have seen some of the Harrison interview footage before, but Scorsese and his team have been careful not to duplicate that project's rigid album-by-album narrative. They've also managed to avoid the well-trodden clips of The Ed Sullivan Show/ Shea Stadium gigs/A Hard Day's Night/Our World broadcast etc. In short, it all feels fresh.
2. It's 3 ½ hours long.
Like Scorsese's Dylan doc, No Direction Home, Living In The Material World is split into two parts. The first 94 minutes chart George's life from his birth in Liverpool in 1943 up until the dissolution of Beatles in 1970. The second half (114 minutes) begins with the recording of All Things Must Pass and travels through the highs and lows of the '70s and '80s before settling in the confines of his family home at the gigantic Friar Park estate and ending with his death in November 2001.
3. It'll make you laugh.
Living In The Material World does a wonderful job of capturing Harrison's scathing wit. His method of removing the Hell's Angels from Apple HQ, his close involvement withMonty Python and his dismissal of Paul McCartney's jacket are just some of the laugh-out-loud moments in the film.
4. Olivia Harrison's account of the 1999 stabbing is terrifying.
On the eve of the new millennium a 36 year-old paranoid schizophrenic broke into Friar Park and attacked George with a kitchen knife, stabbing him several times. Olivia's retaliation against the assailant undoubtedly saved her husband's life. Her memories of that night are chilling and the physical and mental shockwaves are shown to have been far more serious than was first suspected.
5. There are revelations a-plenty.
McCartney's description of his friend as "red-blooded" and Olivia's admission that there had been "hiccups" in their marriage, suggest that George's love of women ¬- and their love of him - may have been almost as powerful as his dedication to spiritual salvation.
There are also candid comments from Eric Clapton on falling in love with George's first wife Patti Boyd. Clapton hints that the idea of "swapping" had actually begun much earlier in the era of "free love".
After the initial explosion of success with All Things Must Pass and The Concert For Bangladesh, the '70s proved a tough decade for Harrison. The trappings of the rock star life had taken over and he looks painfully thin in the live footage from his tour of 1974.
And then there's what he said to Tom Petty when Roy Orbison died...
6. It's a spiritual journey from start to finish.
George on John Lennon's murder: "I think it's nicer if you can consciously leave your body at death as opposed to some lunatic shooting you on the street." Harrison's infatuation with Eastern style, study and sound has remained an integral part of Beatle-lore and Living In The Material World provides the most comprehensive mapping of his quest to date. A man of extremes, Harrison was an intensely private individual who also had the capacity to maintain long-lasting friendships with those he loved. Ringo's tearful recollection of the last words George said to him is testament to the complexity and the compassion of someone who never stopped journeying inward.
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