Sir Peter Jackson – the Oscar-winning director of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit – has put together a WWI film season for the Royal Air Force Museum, London.
Before each main feature, the Museum will be screening a new short film by Sir Peter Jackson ‘Crossing the Line’, which has no dialogue and is written and directed by Sir Peter Jackson. The story centres around a young infantryman and a pilot about to go into battle. Both have comforting reminders of home. As the battle unfolds, the story follows their fate and that of their personal mementoes.
The series of screenings will take place from 10 to 13 July. Museum doors open at 6:30 pm which each film starting at either 7:30pm or 8:00pm.
Each film will be screened against the backdrop of the museum’s Historic Hangars, with members of the public able to explore the venue before each screening.
The screenings available are:
10 July – ‘Beneath Hill 60’: The extraordinary true story of Oliver Woodward. It’s 1916 and Woodward must tear himself from his new young love to go to the mud and carnage of the Western Front. Deep beneath the German lines. Woodward and his secret platoon of Australian tunnellers fight to defend a leaking, labyrinthine tunnel system packed with enough high explosives to change the course of the War.
11 July – ‘Lawrence of Arabia’: Sir David Lean’s emotive epic. The story opens with the death of Lawrence in a motorcycle accident in Dorset at the age of 46, then flashbacks to recount his adventures: as a young intelligence officer in Cairo in 1916, he is given leave to investigate the progress of the Arab revolt against the Turks in World War I.
12 July – ‘Paths of Glory’: Stanley Kubrick in top form. The futility and irony of the war in the trenches in the First World War is shown as a unit commander in the French army must deal with the mutiny of his men and a glory-seeking general after part of his force falls back under fire in an impossible attack.
13 July – ‘The Blue Max’: Starring George Peppard and Ursula Andress. The tactics of a German fighter pilot offend his aristocratic comrades but win him his country’s most honoured medal, the Blue Max. The General finds him useful as a hero even though his wife also finds him useful as a love object. In the end the General arranges for him to test-fly an untried fighter.
Tickets cost £15.00 each, plus a 50p booking fee, and are available through the museum’s website, www.rafmuseum.org.
