The Beatles will forever hold a mystique that defies definition. How some young men barely old enough to shave created music that went around the world and defined an era is astonishing. “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” is produced by George’s widow Olivia Arias who has obviously brought the emotional centre to the story. It also features their son Dhani who shares some poignant and personal details of his life with his famous father. Martin Scorsese’s documentary tribute to George Harrison is a wonderfully conceived expose of this very sensitive and talented man and his soul mates, whom together will forever be known as ‘The Beatles’. George, John, Paul and Ringo would also individually forever be ‘a Beatle’, the very term immediately conjuring up any number of images that defined an era of music, politics, art, religion, sexual freedom, in fact the list is endless. What is even more extraordinary was the possessive nature of the public with regard to these young men and their struggles for their individuality that would define their lives.

These young men almost serendipitously found each other at a time when the universe encouraged their talent and music. Together they had a musical sympathy, creativity and uniqueness that would bond them as a unit – as one organism almost. Their humble beginnings followed by their meteoric rise to fame at a very young age would also alienate them from the world so anxious to embrace and consume them. They would be forced to seek each other out for company because no one else shared the unique set of restrictions that their early found fame had given them. They also had a genuine feeling for each other and were tremendously good friends in those early years. As time went on each ‘Beatle’ eventually had to deal with the pressures of their individuality, the desire to be more than a ‘Beatle’, to seek out individual self expression and its consequences.

There has already been so much information disseminated about each of them and those close to them, it is hard to separate truth from fiction. Ultimately we will choose to see and understand them individually and as a group on our own terms. Martin Scorsese is a master at unveiling just enough of the truth that we have an incrementally better understanding of the person and see a little closer into their soul without really having the intimacy that is probably not ours to share.