Waterloo

There is no need to extol the virtues of this movie. Probably the greatest war film ever made with superb period detail, the movie has always suffered from poor distribution. There was a VHS edition in the 1980s but it seems unlikely that it will make it onto DVD in the US. There is a British edition which has about 10 additional minutes over the earlier US VHS version. Somewhere there is an original Russian version that is rumored to contain well over 3 hours of footage. Perhaps these missing scenes fill in more the Prussian involvement in the battle, and may include their earlier defeat at Ligny which the movie only briefly shows as an aftermath scene. The same is true with the British at Quartre Bras. Some day maybe a directors cut will show these deleted scenes. Until then Waterloo shall remain an incomplete classic! Still, as it is the movie is a feast for all students of warfare in this period. Everything is accurate down to uniforms, military music, and weapons.

"Waterloo" is a film epic, with epic performances from Rod Steiger as Napoleon, and Christopher Plummer as Lord Wellington. The battle scenes are historic, with tens of thousands of extra's and not a hint of any c.g.i.. The calvary charges in "Waterloo" surpass any battle spectacle I have ever seen. I love "Gettysburg" (1993), however the magnitude of the battle in "Waterloo" makes the charge in "Gettysburg" seem like a minor skirmish. If "Waterloo" has a weakness, it concerns the lack of character development in the supporting cast. Although Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer are well developed, the rest of the soldiers come across simply as pawns on a chess board. Highly recommended. - MERK

I watched this movie for the first time in about 10 years today and one of the things that strikes me the most is how much more real it looks that the more recent war movies.

CGI is great for many things, but often detail get overlooked. In this film, because they are actually moving extras around there are clouds of dust everywhere. When the cannon fire, the black powder persists. The film has a real sense all through it of the fog of war.

On a personal note, I served in a Highland regiment, and it is a thrill to see a film where all of the kilts are not the same. The 92nd wear Gordon, Camerons wear Cameron of Erracht, and wonder of wonders both served at Waterloo.

While the terrain shown in the film is nothing like the field, the strength of the film lies the in characterizations of Wellington and Napoleon. Both actors are at the top of their game, although some specifics are off (Wellington wasn't a aristocrat - more younger son of Anglo-Irish gentry).

One of the things that I like about the film is the way the director has cut several times to show Napoleon and Wellington react to the same information. It does a great job of contrasting the differences and similarities of the two leaders.

Visually the film was breathtaking when I first say it in 1970, and it remains so.

There can be no denying that this is a great film to watch.

Pure historians may dispair at some inaccuracies, although in a previous review I notice that a reviewer has made a few mistakes of his own! Air burst shells were quite the norm in fact the RHA were firing over the heads of the British troops at Hugomont the shells exploding over the French, these balls were hollow in nature and fused, in addition to this (although not seen in the film) were the RHA's rockets, which although forbidden by Wellington, were also fired of lierally. A feature I like which is included but wrong are the cannons shown in infantry squares firing at the advancing French cavalry and the troops then closing rank again to fend of the attackers. At the time of making it was still widely believed this happened.

A fair chunk of the story derives from Victor Hugo's descriptions of the battle which in turn were wrong. Bottom line is that I was a much younger man when the movie first came out and it fostered a great interest in finding out more. I feel it is a timeless 'film of its time'. Naturally a re-make would be a wonderful thing in todays modern world but the original does convey some of the depth, noise and smoke of the day.

After Bondarchuk made his colossal reproduction of War And Peace. ( Comparing King Vidor 's version to it is like comparing a paint by numbers watercolor to The Night Watch.) he was naturally chosen by the notorious Dino DeLaurentis to make the battle film to end all battle films, Waterloo.

Waterloo! Is any battle more famous, or more proverbial? With a superb score, a remarkable eye for detail, and stunning overhead shots. ( Not to mention an entire Soviet Army division ), Bondarchuk recreates the highlights of the Napoleonic battle to end all Napoleonic battles. ( Quite literally.)As far as I can tell, the only historical flaw is that The film makes it appear that Wellington's army was exclusively composed of British redcoats, ( Incidentally, one of the best British regiments wore GREEN coats.)when they were only about a third of the "Iron Dukes" polyglot and multi national army. The Kings German Legion, The Dutch, The Danes, the Hessians and the Belgians, are conspicuous by their absence.)

However, what really makes this film stand out is the excellent acting, beginning with the protagonists. Steiger, with his " New York School " method acting, captures the many shades of Napoleon's character: the brilliance, the rages, the sudden bouts of lethargy, the volcanic Corsican eruptions of love and hate.Plummer, the Canadian product of Stratford in the fifties when Sir Tyrone Guthrie was its guiding spirit, brings a very different style to a very different figure. Plummer's Wellington is dry, ironic, skeptical, a man of extraordinary coolness under fire, whose outward stoicism is relieved by sudden flashes of humor and even compassion. He has a job to do. He does it admirably, and at the end, he has lost all stomach for war. Dan O'Herlihy is superb as Ney, a man of extraordinary courage- and absolutely no judgment. Jack Hawkins, sadly at the end, still captures the gruff doggedness of Picton. Finally, there is Welles. This is from the phase of his career when he would do five minutes as Cardinal Wolsey, then five minutes as General Dreedle, all to raise enough money to somehow, someway, finish Don Quixote. Its Tuesday, so Orson is " working for the Russian on the Waterloo thing", doing five minutes as Louis the Seventeenth- and doing it magnificently, playing the corpulent shadow of the Bourbon dynasty as more of a tragic figure than buffoon.

A tremendous effort. Somehow, poor marketing, studio interference and the poor taste, historical ignorance and general stupidity of the American cinema going public lead to box-office failure, which had even more tragic consequences. Kubrick's proposed biopic on Napoleon was not green lighted, thus depriving the world of what should have an even greater film than Gance's Napoleon.