The Empire Film Podcast Peter Jackson Interview Special
Oct 17, 2018
Peter Jackson, Academy Award–winning filmmaker behind The Lord of the Rings, talks about They Shall Not Grow Old and his film-restoration methods. He explains testing and automating restoration, colourising archives, reconstructing speech with lip-reading, and applying techniques to his early films. Conversations range from WWI soldiers’ daily lives to guerrilla-making Meet the Feebles.
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Episode notes
Survivors Framed The War Without Pity
- Survivors' recollections often emphasise pragmatism over victimhood, presenting complex responses to trauma.
- Jackson found many veterans described the war as "the best time of their lives" or said they'd do it again, complicating modern pity-driven narratives.
Colourisation As Historical Accuracy
- Colourising archive footage can increase historical accuracy by reflecting how participants saw events.
- Jackson argued soldiers experienced the war in colour and therefore colourisation was necessary to align visuals with veterans' recollections.
Don't Sanitize Violence Use It Responsibly
- Colourisation inevitably exposes the gore; Jackson chose not to sanitise but to show bodies only when the veterans spoke of them.
- He matched visuals to specific audio recollections, showing dead bodies only in moments veterans described seeing them.