They Shall Not Grow Old

I walked out of the movie theater about three hours ago, and my heart is still thumping. No, it wasn’t Scarlett Johansson or some adventure flick and it wasn’t the next Fast and Furious installment. It was film taken over 100 years ago, of the men who served in the Great War. This blog features a lot of posts about historical wargaming from different eras and genres, and they are read and shared.

But something we don’t write much about is about the real people we are recreating on our tabletops. This isn’t a recount of some historical battle or a game I played, or a system tried out. Rather it will be my attempt to put into words, the images and stories I experienced at the picture show.

Have you ever cried at a film? When the music and script are just right, and care taken to make the scene perfect can be witnessed?

Shall not Grow Old does not feature any actors, it is a two-hour film taken from over 600 hours of archive film, from the Imperial War Museum.

Director Peter Jackson led a team who were dedicated to restoring this film, that time and technology had left to history. They turned it into a stunning memorial and tribute to the people who lived, and died, in World War One.

Every word you hear during the film, is either the direct recording of the men who lived through this gut-wrenching time, or is the dubbed speech, that was discovered by forensic lip readers, and then read by persons from the towns these people in the scene came from.

The actual historic film, which many times was filmed at random speeds as derived from hand-cranked cameras and gave a “Charlie Chaplin” feel to the war, was converted to the standard 24 FPS. The production even added whole generated frames where there was missing information.  After this, it was painstakingly re-colored to impart a view of the War to end all Wars that, till now, had only been seen by those who lived it first hand. Alive, and at times haunting, Shall Not Grow Old reaches out to us.

Life is precious, and every now and then, humanity is given a chance to witness this fact. Some of you reading this may have served in active combat, and some not.

The best part of this film is it takes the visceral feeling of those men in the early 1900s and shares the reality of the war, in a way we all can relate to. Parts at times are humorous, and pull a chuckle from you, while others rip at your heartstrings.

In one scene, a platoon getting ready to go over the top, in the after film bonus, it is explained that 94% of the men and boys you saw, died in the following 20 minutes. Another raw moment comes during a sequence representing the trench fighting. With the close up of faces of a human, and a veteran describing a shell “caving” in his mates face. A flash of an artillery explosion covers the screen and fades to reveal the body of the man with a missing face.

Some may find this gruesome, and distasteful. I would beg you to wait a moment before passing any judgment. All to often, modern society is shielded from the reality of war, and conflict by news reporters that show the glory, or heroic sacrifice. Movies that praise and show a painted glimpse of the horror. “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”
-William T. Sherman

Shall Not Grow Old is so powerfully moving not because of the subject matter or the way it is presented. No, it’s powerful because the people are real, not just stories in a history book, or old B&W photos. The War is almost, touchable.

Peter Jackson ends the documentary with a 30-minute making of the film, the tech is neat, but it always brought back to how he wanted to honor the people, to show their story, without any interference from himself.

The film ends with a call to action for those of us who see it. WWI likely saw many people in your family in the middle of it. Peter Jackson, requested that you look into your family history and record their stories, to save the past for the future. Most of the men and women from the time are dead, and in a few years, their children will follow them. With them, our direct connection will be lost, unless we preserve them in our memory.Shall Not Grow Old, is worth every red cent you spend to witness, and I can only beg you to go and see it. You won’t be disappointed. You will leave the cinema in a stupor, in awe of the actions of our past ancestors.

Next time you pull a model onto the table, take a moment, look at it closely, try and imagine what that figure can represent. Not just to yourself, but to others.

Our models represent a memory of the past, every dice we roll, every rule we disagree on, the value of model or historical accuracy are a way we can remember these men. You don’t even have to stand silently for eleven minutes, just remember.

If you have a picture of a relative and any story to go along with it, could you post it below in the comments? Share with us their story, so we can remember them with you.

-Austin Coped

to the trailer for the documentary if you have not seen it yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrabKK9Bhds

Publisher’s Note: Soon after he came back from seeing this movie I saw the post on Facebook where James explained how moved he was by the movie. James asked if he can write the first movie review for NDNG and I quickly agreed.

I also saw the movie and felt as he did.

The movie really brings to life the mindset of a nation who goes to war, the horror its youth feel in war, and how a society adjusts to the peace that these men won. As a person who has experienced war, I have never seen a documentary that captures the wide array of emotions and thoughts in such a blunt manner as this film.

For me some parts were hard to watch, however I left with a sense of connection with past generations and a small sense of hope that we will look for other means to settle disputes in the future. While our hobby focuses on conflict, it has always been my thought that through our games we understand how devastating war is and that we become advocates for peace.. –Mitch Reed