With blockbuster effects, Peter Jackson brings WWI to life

Peter Jackson has used digital wizardry to conjure J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth and King Kong's 1930s New York, but he has now — in perhaps his most acclaimed film — employed all his technical powers to bring to life the Western Front of the first World War.

Jackson's "They Shall Not Grow Old" is the 57-year-old filmmaker's first documentary. Commissioned by Britain's Imperial War Museum to coincide with the centenary of the Armistice, Jackson assembled the film from more than 100 hours of footage from the front and 600 hours of audio interviews conducted in the 1960s with surviving British soldiers.

In the course of the five-year project, Jackson restored the heavily damaged, grainy footage, colorized it, stabilized the frame rates (many were only 13 frames per second, and could vary based upon how fast the cameraman was cranking) and transferred the film into 3-D. Along with adding battle sound effects, he even employed expert lip readers to recreate the unheard dialogue.

This image released by Warner Bros. Entertainment shows a scene from the WWI documentary "They Shall Not Grow Old," directed by Peter Jackson. Jackson drew on all the technical know-how of his big-budget spectacles to turn hundreds of hours of footage from the Western Front and audio of surviving soldiers into a seamless, unobstructed portrait of the war as seen from the British trenches. Jackson altered frame rates, colorized and turned 3-D the footage, even employing lip readers to capture dialogue. (Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)

With the kind of technology usually employed on a big-budget spectacle, the fog of time lifted from the footage, revealing the soldiers anew.

"The people on the film became human beings again. Their humanity jumps out at you," Jackson said in an interview. "Their faces and the subtle way they move and their expressions, you just realize you're seeing you're seeing these people for the first time in 100 years."

"They Shall Not Grow Old," which takes its name from the Laurence Binyon poem "For the Fallen," has already played in the U.K., where it earned Jackson the best reviews of his career. "The effect is electrifying," wrote the Guardian. "The faces are unforgettable."

This image released by Warner Bros. Entertainment shows a scene from the WWI documentary "They Shall Not Grow Old," directed by Peter Jackson. Jackson drew on all the technical know-how of his big-budget spectacles to turn hundreds of hours of footage from the Western Front and audio of surviving soldiers into a seamless, unobstructed portrait of the war as seen from the British trenches. Jackson altered frame rates, colorized and turned 3-D the footage, even employing lip readers to capture dialogue. (Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)

Fathom Events will screen the film in 500 theaters nationwide on Monday and again on Dec. 27 before a more traditional release from Warner Bros. beginning Jan. 11.

For Jackson, it's the culmination of a passion project, one undertaken in part as a tribute to the New Zealand filmmaker's grandfather, who fought in the war. The first three years of the project, edited at Jackson's post-production facility, Park Road Post, weren't spent cutting anything together but sifting through the material and cleaning it up.

"We were just listening, listening, listening, making notes and finding what this film was going to be," he says.

This image released by Warner Bros. Entertainment shows a scene from the WWI documentary "They Shall Not Grow Old," directed by Peter Jackson. Jackson drew on all the technical know-how of his big-budget spectacles to turn hundreds of hours of footage from the Western Front and audio of surviving soldiers into a seamless, unobstructed portrait of the war as seen from the British trenches. Jackson altered frame rates, colorized and turned 3-D the footage, even employing lip readers to capture dialogue. (Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)

Startled by the clearness of the restoration, Jackson opted to impress as little as possible on the film. The only narration is that of the soldiers recounting their experiences; even dates and locations of battles have been withheld to capture the view of the war from those in the trenches. "They only saw what was right in front of their eyes," says Jackson.

The recollections of the British soldiers are surprisingly pragmatic and straightforward, lacking any sense of regret or self-pity. "They didn't want that and they didn't expect that," says Jackson. "I don't think they would really approve of the way we think of the first World War now."

But the director is also quick to point out that the 120 men interviewed don't reflect a universal story of the war. These are survivors, many of whom went on to have families and productive lives, looking back decades later. "If we had interviews from the millions of soldiers that were killed, they would tell a different story," says Jackson.

Clarity has always been elusive in WWI, a war with puzzling beginnings and staggering loss of life that nevertheless became overshadowed in the popular imagination by World War II. But the simple, unclouded lucidity of "They Shall Not Grow Old" offers a small window into the Great War. Jackson hopes it inspires young people to learn about WWI and archivists around the world to make similar restorations of historical film.

It's also the first worthwhile 3-D film in some time. Jackson, who was at the forefront of the reintroduction of 3-D, still believes it has value despite its cratered popularity.

"People are only losing interest in it because of the quality of the projection, to be honest with you," he says, predicting that that will change with the advent of laser projection. "Everything that people don't like about 3-D — and I agree with them, that feeling like you have sunglasses on while watching a film — that all goes away with laser projection."

So "There Shall Not Grow Old" is, in some ways, a characteristically Jackson film, with the notable exception that he wasn't there to shoot any of it. Not that he minded.

"I don't actually like being on set, particularly. I always regard that as being an arduous chore," he says. "So in a way I was quite happy to skip over the shooting part of it. The boys on the Western Front a hundred years ago did all the hard work filming it, and I was able to go straight to the part I like the most."

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.

Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).

Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.

That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.

In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.

Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.

In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.

“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.

Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.

It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.

“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.

It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.

While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.

“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.

Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.

Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)