Above you can watch how director Peter Jackson’s made the Word War I historical documentary They Shall Not Grow Old.
As Jackson explains, advances in digital technology allowed him to show life on the frontline in color. During the four years it took to make the film, Jackson also used forensic-lip readers to help him understand what soldiers in the old silent footage were saying and then actors were used that to give them a voice.
Press the top left play button on the above feature image to watch 5 minutes of the BBC film.
To help tell the story, veterans’ recorded testimonies about their wartime experiences are used throughout the film.
“It was their lack of self-pity that surprised me,” Jackson told History Extra when referring to the testimonies.
“We look on these guys with an enormous sort of pity now. We think that we sent these men into this industrial grinding machine,” he said. “But they certainly didn’t think that was what was happening to them — there was no feeling sorry for themselves.”
They Shall Not Grow Old was commissioned by the BBC and the British Imperial War Museum for the November 2018 centenary of the end of World War I. Lest we forget.
