Waterloo

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.

This film is simply a master-stroke. It depicts one of the greatest military victories in British history and, from the point of view of the French, one of the most disastrous. This battle put an end to the monstrous (but impressive) career of the 'Great Thief of Europe', Napoleon Bonaparte.

Firstly, as an Briton, I must count the Duke of Wellington as one of my heroes but I should also say that I am a great admirer of the Emperor. Although I stand in awe of his achievements, however, as a patriot, I can't say I regret that he was eventually defeated. Nevertheless, this doesn't stop me from admiring him.

This film is probably the best film ever made that so vividly depicts the unique relationship between these two exceptional characters: Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, who, between them, were the greatest military minds of that era (along with the great naval genius Rear-Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson, who beat the French at Trafalgar, but was tragically killed in the Battle).

The film has an amazing international cast, which includes Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer, Virginia McKenna, Jack Hawkins, Dan O'Herlihy and the legendary Orson Welles as King Louis XVIII.

Steiger plays the Emperor and the film starts with one of his most loyal generals, Marshal Michel Ney, Duc d'Elchingen (O'Herlihy), forcing him to abdicate the French throne. Steiger's portrayal of Bonaparte is electric and he plays the Emperor almost like a tragi-hero. A military genius who lays waste to most of Europe but cannot overcome his own inner-demons. Steiger's portrayal, unlike most depictions of Napoleon, shows both the Emperor's military and political fervour as well as his anxiety, insecurity and mental anguish. The director is mindful of the fact that, although Napoleon was embarking on the definitave military campaign of his life, he was mentally exhausted and destroyed by the absence of his beloved son, who was 'captive' in Austria with his mother. Although occasionally a little too zelous, on the whole, Steiger's performance lights up the screen, giving the viewer a vivid sense of Napoleon's imperfections, his tantrums and eccentricities.

Christopher Plummer takes on the role of one of Britain's great heroes. Once again, Sergei Bondarchuk has made no effort to romanticise or excessively glorify the 'Iron Duke'. Plummer's performance is beautifully underacted and Plummer chooses to show both Wellington's massive ego and his sharp and witty sense of humour. Like Napoleon, and most English aritocrats, Wellington was also an eccentric (this is most excellently demonstrated by the Duke's response to the discovery that a man from the Enniskillen, whom he "flogged more than the rest of the army put together", had stolen a pig - promoting him to corporal). Plummer makes no attempt to sugar-coat Wellington or hide some of the Field Marhsal's less attractive character traits and prejudices, one of his first utterances in the film being "scum! Beggars and scoundrels the lot of them. Gin is the spirit of their patriotism" (to the Duchess of Richmond, in reference to his own men).

Bondarchuk takes the risky but highly effective gamble of packing the script full of actual quotes attributed to the great men themselves. This could easily have been a disaster but pays off beautifully. Even though they never meet, the Emperor and the Iron Duke almost seem to have a bizarre rapour, Napoleon saying of Wellington "this man has two qualities I admire: courage and, above all, caution" and Wellington saying of Napoleon "by God, this man does war honour". It also reveals a curious phenomenon that existed between Napoleon and Wellington in that Napoleon publicly derided Wellington's skill as a commander but in private admired him a great deal, whereas Wellington always publicly expressed admiration for Napoleon but in private confided that he thought the Emperor a bad strategist and a clumsy military leader.

Bondarchuk performs a master-stroke of directing. The cinematography is amazing and highly effective, combining clever, well-chosen close-ups with audacious panoramic views of the battlefield. Thrown into this the great performances by Steiger and Plummer and an amazing supporting cast, including the great Jack Hawkins (sadly, due to his having throat cancer, rather badly dubbed) as the curmudgeonly General Sir Thomas Picton, Dan O'Herlihy as the charismatic Marshal Ney and Virginia McKenna as the snobbish closet-Bonapartist Duchess of Richmond, and the result is magic!

The battle scenes are exceptional (although perhaps not quite bloody enough to give an accurate depiction of the horror and carnage of warfare at that time). Bondarchuk wastes no time using poetic licence, dumbing down or filling every scene with stupid romantic flummery - the characterisation is limited to the two great commanders and those closest around them at the time. Only Ney and Soult and Uxbridge, Ponsonby and Picton are developed much beyond simply who they were.

The film should also be congratulated on its historical accuracy. One or two minor inaccuracies aside, the film is extremely faithful, especially in terms of the battle itself and the military strategy involved. Sadly, in recent times, especially in America, the Hollywood machine seems all to happy to totally re-write history (e.g., "Saving Private Ryan" and "Braveheart"). Anyone looking for another "Titanic" or "Ryan" will not be interested in this film. If you just like watching films that bypass historical fact and depict the U.S.A. single-handedly saving the world then may I recommend "U-571".

This film does none of these things, it shows the French, English, Scots, Irish, Belgians, Dutch, Prussians (Germans), Russians, and all the rest, fighting in a time when war was honourable and wasn't decided by some lab-technician siting three miles under ground in Washington with his finger on a button and where there where military casualties actually outnumbered civilian ones.

This film is exceptionally impressive, especially given as many of the panoramic views of the army formations were shot using cardboard cut-outs (much more effective than the contemporary practice of simply CGI-ing both armies). The only flaw is the bad dubbing throughout the film and the fact that, like so many de Laurentiis films, the original director's cut was 5 hours long and some soulless corporate hacks slashed it down to just over 2!

Nevertheless, this is movie-history!

10/10 - and that's rare!

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.

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.

The miracle of modern CGI is wonderful to watch, but in any scene here, with however many thousands of real extras filmed from helicopter or plane, the local chaos of battle lends credibility to this film. The shot of the French Cavalry invading the field of British Squares is formidable, and the slow disappearance of the view behind clouds does indeed represent the fog of war. Gunpowder is a particularly dirty propellant and on the day itself I doubt much could be seen at all, but then shooting scenes composed mostly of gun smoke would not be terribly helpful or interesting.

I am slightly surprised by some IMDb commentators references to the true quotations appearing in the film attributed to the Duke of Wellington and others, and how they seem to "fit in". If the heroic character portrayed in the film actually said them, then they cannot be out of place! If you look up Wellington's quotations in any dictionary or internet site, his comment about nothing being worse than a battle lost than a battle won appears in several slight variations, in letters, quoted conversations etcetera.

Rather like Zulu, thank goodness this film was made when the focus was the battle and the generals, without endless diversions into moralising and personal stories. Waterloo was a battle between an alliance and a dictator, never mind the small print. This film deserves far greater credit than it was given. See it.