WW I Documentary

The WW I documentary "They Shall Not Grow Old" by director Peter Jackson, a New Zealander whose grandfather was a soldier badly injured whose civilian life was shortened by the war. I was particularly drawn to this film for my wife whose dad was a very young U.S. recruit who served in the trenches and was burdened by the aftereffects of poison gas for his entire life ever after. The brilliance is that the film is technically enhanced using computers, colorization, and lip readers to add dialogue, and extensive recordings of oral history by actual veterans. The harrowing battle and artillery bombardment scenes, and the many scenes of casualties is heartrending and horrifying, but authentic. Pipe people will appreciate the dusting of film of soldiers behind and in the trenches enjoying pipes, mostly trim, portable clenched billiards and Dublins, but at least one extravagant cavalier that must be close to two feet long. This film focuses on English (and Welsh and Scots) soldiers, though the director is a New Zealander, but he notes that the experience was shared as well by the Germans, Americans, and many English colonial troops, since the carnage was common to most combat participants. If you can view it, it is well worth the time.

I was intrigued that though smoking was quite common among the troops in these particular films, pipe smokers were still a distinct minority. You see a lot more than you'd see today, but it is still the few and the independent.

Sorry to be redundant with this thread, guys. I remember well the World War One discussion, just not that it was based on this film. Had I remembered that, I would have bumped back one of the previous threads.

mike, I don't know if it is on Netflix yet, or set to be. Anyone else know? ash', on a clear day, I can distinctly see jiminks taillights but only because of these twisting mountain roads. He's at least fifty miles ahead of me, and moving faster by twenty miles an hour. I could pad the posts until the end of the century. Being real. Ref. access to the film, it is distributed by Warner Brothers, but was produced by Peter Jackson and the Imperial War Museum, I believe. So I"m not sure how all that translates to a Netflix release.