George Harrison: Living in the Material World

George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011) is Martin Scorsese's three and a half hour documentary. It covers the Beatles years, but what it is actually interested in is a man trying to build a spiritual life in the middle of fame, and how lonely that turns out to be. How it came to exist is worth knowing. After Harrison died in 2001 several production companies approached his widow Olivia about a biographical film and she refused, because George had wanted to tell his own story through his own video archive. After meeting Scorsese she approved the project and became a producer on it herself. It took about five years. Through 2008 and 2009 Scorsese moved back and forth between this and Shutter Island. He and editor David Tedeschi spent that time assembling interviews, music, film clips and photographs. It received six nominations at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards and won two, for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming and Outstanding Nonfiction Special. HBO showed it in two parts. It runs 208 minutes. Good for: the Beatles, music documentaries, and stories about faith and fame. Less good for: 208 minutes is heavy in one sitting. Because it is built out of family and friends, the critical distance is thin; Harrison's difficult side is acknowledged rather than examined.