I am genuinely confused.
Say you were one of the most-famous entertainers on the
planet in the last 50 years or so, and since young adulthood your every move
has been documented, collected, and discussed. Then say you leave the planet,
but your family enlists the help of one of the finest film directors of the
last 50 years or so to tell your life story in a multi-part, beautifully-shot,
208-minute documentary.
So how can it be that at 208:01 mark viewers walk away with
knowing little more about George Harrison than they did before? Martin Scorsese
has made a curious film in “George Harrison: Living In The Material World.”
It’s pretty, but leaves fans at a distance. The Quiet Beatle, oddly, remains
a mystery to us, which makes me further wonder if he wasn’t a mystery to his
family, friends, and self as well, in the end.
Harrison’s story is told through new interviews with the
major figures in his life, including wife Olivia and ex-wife Patti Boyd, son
Dhani, fellow ex-Beatles Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, and many famous
friends such as Eric Clapton, Eric Idle, and Jackie Stewart. John Lennon and
Harrison himself appear in interviews recorded before their deaths. The film
begins with Harrison’s modest upbringing in Liverpool during post-WWII and
quickly brings us up to his days with the Beatles, which as expected takes the
biggest chunk of the run time. The crucial swing point of the movie is when
Harrison, overwhelmed by his enormous worldwide fame, begins to
experiment with LSD in search of meaning and higher consciousness, and then
rejects chemical enlightenment for deep studies of Eastern spirituality. This
devotion to spiritual development and mysticism defined the rest of his life.
Any regular old fan, not even particularly a Beatles fan,
knows all this already. It’s been part of the story of rock‘n roll for decades
now – the sitar on “Norwegian Wood” and “Within You Without You,” the trips to
India, the truncated-by-manager-death guru meet-up in Wales, Hare Krishna Hare
Rama, “My Sweet Lord” in courtroom drama. But we don’t really get any deep
understanding of just why Harrison chose this particular path, other than it
seemed to numb or distract him from worldly things that were difficult to deal
with. Spirituality was his answer in finding meaning in life and peace in
death, but what was it in him that made him take that path rather than
something else, and take it so devotedly? That is never answered in a
satisfying way.
We hear hints of confusion from Harrison’s friends, bandmates,
and family, and we are left to infer that he was both the most devoted friend
and an unfaithful husband, often patient and kind, yet on a dime short-tempered
and bitter. When Harrison states that his only reason to stick around on Earth
would be to parent his son, it feels like a burn to all the people who cared
for him, especially his wife. This duality – the love for mankind and good in
the world, while showing at times great callousness towards others – needed to
be explored more honestly. You got the feeling that everyone was holding back,
in respect for a dead man’s legacy, for that they still loved him, no matter
what.
There is an overall chill to this film, a hollowness that is so disappointing considering
that George Harrison is truly beloved by millions all over the world. We want
to celebrate him, we want to know him, and “Living In The Material World”
doesn’t really allow it. We aren’t really ever shown how or why he did what he
did, how he created the music he made, or how he felt about what he did. We
want to think that his spiritual beliefs were his answer, yet shake our heads
when hearing that Harrison’s first response to a violent intruder into his home
was to shout chants at him.
Over close to 50 years now, I’ve watched so many, many films, interviews, documentaries,
anything featuring any of the Beatles, and something I’ve noticed that has
troubled me for a long time I saw again in this effort. It breaks my heart to
compare interviews with any of the four Beatles from their earliest days with
anything later, for you see such a distinct change in each one of them. It is a
hardening, a wariness, a door closed off that used to be wide open, a look to
the eyes, a set of the shoulders. It is trust long gone and joy once seen,
dulled. It is the cost of being the four most-famous young men in all the
world, who brought immeasurable happiness to others and will continue to do so
for generations into the future, the price of having everything yet still not
being able to understand why. With Harrison and Lennon gone and Starr and
McCartney unwilling or unable to reveal anything more of themselves to a
still-insatiable public, how it really was to be a Beatle -- and then not be a
Beatle -- may never be known to any of us.
In the entire 208 minutes, there was but one moment that
burst through to me, a second of reality that I’ll hold onto in honoring George
Harrison’s life. It came near the end of the film, in a story told by Ringo
Starr. He had traveled to see Harrison, who was nearing the end of his life,
suffering from cancer. At the end of their visit, Starr mentioned that he had
to go to be with his daughter, who was also very ill with a brain tumor. Tears
come to Starr’s eyes when he recalls that Harrison then said, “Do you want me
to come with you?” It is a stunningly sad, yet beautiful moment.
“George Harrison: Living In The Material World” ends up
frustrating us for all the things not said, and not fully understood about him.
Leave it to Ringo to lift the veil, even if only for a second.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman