Briefly: Scorsese Takes A Stab at Harrison Doc

Martin Scorsese has committed to direct an untitled documentary about the life of George Harrison.Scorsese will produce with Harrison’s widow Olivia and Nigel Sinclair in a co-production between Scorsese’s Sikelia Prods., Harrison’s Grove Street Prods., and Sinclair’s Spitfire Pictures.

The docu is being constructed as a theatrical release, and the Harrison family will supply materials from its extensive archive. Interviews and early production will begin later this year, and the film will take several years to complete.

Pic will cover Harrison’s Beatles career and later years that included a successful solo music career as well as a foray as a movie mogul when he backed Handmade Films and made pics such as “Monty Python‘s Life of Brian” and “Time Bandits.” Scorsese, who explored themes of faith in “Kundun” and “The Last Temptation of Christ,” will also focus closely on the Eastern spiritual pursuits that were central to Harrison’s life.

The docu will be edited by David Tedeschi, who served the same role on the Scorsese-directed Rolling Stones film “Shine A Light.” Tedeschi was also editor on the Scorsese-directed “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.”

Spitfire’s Sinclair was a producer on the Dylan film with Scorsese, and he just teamed with Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend as a producer on “Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who,” which will be released on DVD by Universal on Nov. 5.

Sikelia’s Margaret Bodde will be exec producer of the Harrison film.

“George Harrison’s music and his search for spiritual meaning is a story that still resonates today and I’m looking forward to delving deeper,” Scorsese said.

It is expected that Harrison’s surviving Beatles bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will participate, as well as the Beatles’ Apple Records, which counts Olivia Harrison as a partner.

Harrison met her husband in 1974 and they were together until he died of lung cancer at age 58 in 2001. The two of them famously fought off and subdued an attacker who broke into the Harrison home and stabbed the guitarist several times in 1999. She was also the catalyst for the tribute show “The Concert for George,” and organized a reissue of “The Concert for Bangladesh,” which Harrison put together in 1971.

“It would have given George great joy to know that Martin Scorsese has agreed to tell his story,” she said.