Waterloo

A magnificent movie in every respect: film production, cinema, actors and script. This is a human account of a man driven by his previous successes, but hampered by illness; he is unable to repeat his former glories.

I should imagine anyone prepared to shell out the asking price for the special edition already knows what a masterpiece Sergei Bondarchuk-directed movie Waterloo is. I also suspect a great many of those interested saw it when it came out in 1970. I had the immense good fortune to see it at the Gaumont Cinema, Birmingham in 1970. I believe it was the biggest screen in the UK at the time. A magnificent temple to cinema. Demolished by, as usual, myopic developers with their eyes on the present but not the future. "Be Here Now" is not always the best spiritual advice. Well, if you saw it then, you'll have wished for this release a long long time. It warms the heart that people have cared sufficiently to reveal the immense life and brilliance hidden in this movie. Everyone who participated in this mega-production deserves praise. Spectacle... Real speactacle. Excellent dialogue/acting based on the play The Dynasts by (if memory serves) Thomas Hardy plus added historical material from HAL Craig. Plummer's Wellington is perfect. Steiger's Napoleon immense on first viewing, with just a bit too much close, intense study. Some of the old flair of Austerlitz wouldn't have gone amiss. he sometimes seems to have escaped from an asylum, rather than Elba. Still, he was an older critter in 1815. But the greatest achievement is in the physicality of the overall direction. It doesn't matter whether you care a fig about the historical period (well captured with forgiveable historical gaffes), your attention will be held by this superb restoration. Get your more sensible friends to come and enjoy a film, the like of which will NEVER be made again. I mean "never" - like a loved one that's not coming back. Such was it to truly live in that terrible/amazing late Sixties period - not all bliss, but what transcendent AMBITION. waterloo represents ambition succeeding. I think I've written more than required to recommend this DVD. But no one else seems to have done, so this is for starters.

This is a quality presentation of an epic film, one of the greatest epics. I'll just start by saying that Rod Steiger's performance as Napoleon is the reason I am not giving it a full five stars. I had seen the movie before but this was the first time I had watched it in full, and in such good quality. Steiger's performance almost ruins the film for me, brooding over acting, going from quiet whispers to shouting harangues, it displays everything wrong with method acting when used in the wrong context. Christopher Plummer, by contrast is phlegmatic, witty and full of charm as Wellington. The battle scenes are staggering and we will never see such scenes staged again without the use of cgi. It also made me wonder if there are any directors alive today who could stage such spectacle and I really do not know the answer.

This quite unique 1970 Soviet-Italian production with American and British cast is possibly the BEST screen reconstruction of a great historical battle. I saw this film no less than four times and I loved every minute of it - each time. Soviet director Serguei Bondarchuk, who was already famous for his incredible 431 minutes long monumental "War and peace" (1966-67) signed here another masterpiece. This film really shows the terror and the beauty of large Napoleonic Wars battles probably as well as it was humanly possible to show them in 1970. Bondarchuk received 16 000 Soviet soldiers and an authentic 2000 riders strong brigade of cavalry to participate in this film - and he didn't waste even one of them... Both main actors did a great job. Christopher Plummer is grandiose as Wellington, even if his character is a little bit too cheerful and smiling - the real man was much colder, more distant, quite condescending and definitely scarier and more ruthless. Rod Steiger is also excellent as Napoleon (it is possibly his greatest role ever), although here again, his character is somehow changed compared to real Emperor, with unnecessary elements of buffoonery added by Bondarchuk (who, after all, was Russian and therefore quite prejudiced against this great man). Amongst supporting actors Jack Hawkins is of course excellent as General Picton, Michael Wilding is very good as General Ponsonby, Terence Alexander portrays a very convincing Earl of Uxbridge and there is also a nice cameo by Orson Welles who plays king Louis XVIII. But amongst the supporting cast this is Dan O'Herlihy who delivers the most poignant performance as Marshal Michel Ney, Prince of Moscova, "Le Brave des Braves" (the Bravest of the Braves), a man who has no illusions about the issue of the fight he is fighting and therefore just wants to die with honor - which was denied to him as he survived Waterloo just to be executed in December 1815... As a last honor he was authorised to command himself the firing squad, which he did in following words: "Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I protest against my condemnation. I have fought a hundred battles for France, and not one against her ... Soldiers, fire!" There are of course some differences between the real battle and the one we see on the screen, but in the great lines this film shows the battle of Waterloo as it was, a monumental, terrifying clash of great armies led by great captains - and it shows it very well. A very useful and true thing shown in this film is that Napoleon was in 1815 already quite sick and his body was betraying him - he was going to die five years later aged barely 52 - which actually played a role in his performance in this last campaign... The one thing that this film doesn't show is that by ending Napoleonic epic adventure this battle caused also the whole continental Europe to be grasped with utmost cruelty by the iron fist of Holy Alliance and its successors - a choking hold which destroyed all aspiration for liberty until the alliance was ultimately shattered by the Crimean War, which was won, amongst others, by Bonaparte's heir, Emperor Napoleon III... That little reserve notwithstanding, this is an AMAZING, GRANDIOSE film and an absolutely obligatory viewing for all history freaks and amateurs of good cinema. A film to buy, watch and keep. ENJOY!

Superbe film retraçant la bataille de Waterloo. Scènes époustouflantes de la bataille et montrant l'absurdité des guerres passés et à venir.

Angesichts der zahlreichen Rezensionen fasse ich mich kurz: WATERLOO ist ganz ohne Frage ein sehr sehenswerter historischer Film - und wie bei jeder dramatisierten Darstellung eines historischen Ereignisses kann man natürlich über die Authentizität mancher Szenen streiten. Dies tut aber hier dem Endresultat keinen Abbruch, die Schlacht wird packend und nachvollziehbar gestellt, und es ist bemerkenswert, wie glaubhaft es mit den Mitteln des Jahres 1970 gelang, das Massengefecht in Szene zu setzen. Gleiches gilt für die Ereignisse, die der Schlacht vorangingen - auch hier mag man über die Darstellung mancher Ereignisse oder die Charakterisierung einzelner Protagonisten diskutieren, "unterm Strich" ist der Gesamteindruck jedoch sehr stimmig. Effekte und Darsteller sind gut, und die Regie verstand es, ein komplexes Ereignis sowohl auf strategischer wie auch auf politischer und individueller Ebene aus mehreren Blickwinkeln darzustellen - kombiniert mit einer auch heute noch beeindruckenden Kameraarbeit, die mitunter mit wirklich spektakulären Kamerafahrten, Zeitlupen und Closeups überzeugt. Alles in allem: ein sehr aufwendig inszeniertes, packendes Historiendrama. Von mir gibt es knappe, aber verdiente 5 Sterne.

En mi opinión, una de las mejores películas bélicas de todos los tiempos. Es una superproducción rusa, por lo que el uso de miles de hombres en el rodaje no era problema. Históricamente muy correcta, y quizás la mejor para ver como evolucionan las tropas en la época de Napoleón (cargas de caballería, ataques en columna, defensas en línea, cuadro contra caballería), etc.

Stunning in its depiction of the immensity of the Battle. (Too bad that I couldn't view it with DVD Player and TV screen.)

Outside of the Marvel & D.C. Cinematic Universes, as well LOTR, you don't really see epics anymore, at least not historical ones meant to be played in a cinema. And that's a fact that makes this gem all the more precious. Waterloo was one those pivotal battles. The political & social repercussions of the end of the Napoleonic era still define much of Europe to this day. But the armies that faced each other at Waterloo had no idea that this was the end of one order & the beginning of another. They just wanted to win, & to live. The two main protagonists are British Field Marshal Wellington & French Emperor Napoleon, played by Christopher Plummer & Rod Steiger respectively. And of the two performances, it's Steiger's that commands your attention. His Napoleon is an old man nearly at the end of his rope, who has been fighting the British since he moved his cannon at Toulon & drove the Redcoats off French soil for the next 20 years. The Napoleon that defeated the English at Toulon is not the man Wellington now faces. His youth & vigour are as distant at Waterloo as are all of his greatest victories. Steiger does a masterful job of contrasting Napoleon's desperation with his forced confidence. He alternates between bravado & despair, knowing in his heart of hearts that he is only one battle away from total defeat. As for Plummer, the icy sang froid with which he imbues Wellington makes it dashed hard to get a read on the man. A little more humanity in Plummer's performance would not have been misplaced. As the film notes, Wellington was aware that a failure at Waterloo might well mean the end of his career. A defeat was going to require a scapegoat & no amount of success in Spain was going to save Arthur Wellesley (Wellington) if he allowed Napoleon to take Brussels & re-ignite a general European a war. However, the way Plummer portrays him, Wellington shows no more emotion when the leg of his second-in-command is blown off than he does when entering a ball the evening before. The battle sequences in this film are truly stupendous, with the greatest of perspectives provided when the camera pulls up & then over the British squares that are withstanding Marshal Nay's ill conceived cavalry assault. (If you're wondering why the British squares held against so much French cavalry, the fact is that horses, even charging ones, will not ride into a wall of bayonets. Instead, they will shy & swerve, a fact Nay should have remembered, a fact Napoleon shouts about when he asks why Nay didn't order infantry support.) Finally, for anyone not familiar with the history on display here, don't worry. Just think of this film as a really great action movie, akin to the LOTR's Two Towers, when the Rohim retreat to Helm's Deep & the orcs attack. Fortunately for the Rohim though, Gandalf's fierce charge at dawn of the 5th day of the siege has more success than either the Scots Greys or Nay did when they made their charges at Waterloo!