All Things Must Pass: An afternoon with George

I did not want to wait weeks - maybe more - to see him closer to home. I did not want to run the risk of missing him entirely. There was nothing for it but to drive to Brisbane, to the Dendy at Portside. And the journey was oh so worth it ...

Not so much the journey to Brisbane, but the journey into Martin Scorcese's world of George Harrison: All Things Must Pass. "It feels like I've been in someone's life for four hours," said Phil as we exited, blinking, into the blazing Brisbane sun. Tossed rudely from Scorcese's tardis, we had not fully landed. I was not sure I wanted to.

Days later, Scorcese's film still reels through my mind: Astrid Kirchherr, as captivating as her beautiful black and white images, her photo of a seventeen-year-old George with his old soul eyes beneath the cocky, teddyboy haircut. Ravi Shankar's dazzling sitar, his aura of perfect calm, his reflection on music as a state of pure love.  Jacki Stewart's analogy between music performance and the heightened state of awareness he felt behind the wheel of an F1. Ringo’s touching reminiscences, his endearing blokiness as he wipes off an errant tear.

And most enduring of all, those entrancing images of George’s extraordinary garden - a wonderland of turrets and streams and ponds and topiaries - his beloved Friar Park.

George was so often cliched as the enigmatic Beatle, the dark horse.  To unravel complexity takes time, and the care and precision of a Scorcese. Slowly, tenderly even, Scorcese peels back layer after layer, revealing George as a relentlessly driven seeker of perfection - the perfect song, the perfect recording, the perfect garden - a perfection only glimpsed, perhaps, through chemicals or meditation. But finally, it seems, George was driven by love - pure, wholehearted, unconditional. "Scan not your friend through microscopic glass" was an aphorism he aimed to live by.

And his family, and his friends many and true, loved him so deeply and unconditionally in return.

I am of the generation to whom the Beatles were an integral part of life, of the world as we knew it, as integral as the sun and moon and bicycles and houses. So ubiquitous was their presence, over so many years, they became imbued with a weird familiarity - like family, yet of course, not. Halfway through this beautiful, moving film, I leaned to Phil and whispered: "Aren't you grateful to have been there, to have lived through those songs?"

They say you should never meet your heroes. But if I could meet George, I would want to thank him for Something, and My Sweet Lord, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps and … 

Oh yes, and ask him: "Where did you get those excellent gnomes?"