In Martin Scorsese's documentary “George Harrison: Living in the Material World,” Harrison's journey is traced as a search for himself in the tumult of incoming distractions. It is clear, as Paul Theroux points out in a recent article, that in Harrison's life Scorsese saw much of his own reflected. They began as lonely, alienated children. They found escape and joy in music and film. They focused their lives on those arts. They resisted the possibility of being entirely consumed.
This is a long film, for which the expansiveness of cable television is appropriate. With “Material World,” which will debut over two nights on HBO, at 208 minutes, Scorsese has accomplished the best documentary that is probably possible. With George's faithful second wife, Olivia, as his co-producer, he has assembled all the archival material, all the photos, all the film and video, transient and lasting.
With his own prestige, and because they loved George, Scorsese has been able to call on those who knew Harrison in all weathers: his son Dhani, Ringo and Paul, Yoko Ono, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam, Eric Clapton, Jackie Stewart and many others.
“In my beginning is my end,” T.S. Eliot wrote. For George Harrison, raised in the working class in postwar Liverpool, one of those beginnings must have been his father's vegetable garden. Victory Gardens, they were called during and after the war, and my own father had one, too. All through his life, as money and fame came to him, he found pleasure seeking houses with gardens.
English country houses are known for their gardens, but many of their owners never got their hands dirty. George was obsessed by the physical act of gardening, working with his land every day that he could. When you garden, you imagine its effect for those who will see your garden — for future generations and strangers. It is a gift you give to the land and to others, and it shows love of beauty in a pure form.
George's professional life was caught up in a maelstrom almost from the day he first auditioned for John and Paul, playing “Raunchy” for them on the top deck of a bus. Scorsese's film deals fully with the rise of the Beatles, when pop stardom was transformed into a great deal more, because it quickly became obvious that the Beatles were extraordinary.
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