Waterloo

The problem most war movies have, especially if they depict one battle, is the addition of extraneous sub-plots. I suppose the film makers think a broader audience will appreciate a movie more if there's an ordinary fellow shoved in that we can follow, and a love interest . . . Perhaps this view is valid. "Waterloo" comes dangerously on the brink of that pitfall in an early scene, but quickly backs up and focuses on who we really need to know to understand the battle: Napoleon and Wellington. Christopher Plummer was born to play Wellington, and he underplays the part beautifully, so that you know what he's thinking by the flick of an eyebrow or the corner of his mouth. Steiger looks like the older Napoleon, and he tends to chew the scenery, but Napoleon flew into unrestrained rages.

The movie does an admirable job of doing what so many lesser war movies don't: it gives you a good idea of what's going on in the field. If you pay attention, you won't be at a loss for the strategy or tactics.

Furthermore, the way it was shot has kept it from aging. It doesn't look like a "spectacle" from the '50s or '60s -- and though it employs a few of the poor film-making choices of its time that late-sixties film makers thought were so cool but which turned out so confusing and easily dated -- it doesn't seem dated at all.

The script has a peculiarity that might well have destroyed it: the writers seem to have excavated every famous quote from Napoleon, Wellington, et al, and shoved them all into the dialogue; and, amazingly, it isn't a distraction.

The worst problem the film has as a whole is its tendency to try to duplicate famous paintings by Meissonier, Lady Butler, and others; sometimes this works, giving the color tones we have come to expect of the period from those very artworks. Occasionally, it's distracting.

There are a few very rough cuts that look pretty bad. But the movie originally was more than four hours long, and the American release suffers from somewhat poor editing and splicing. Surely it's time to bring a full (and wide-screen) release to home video?

However, if you like your historical war movies diluted with love stories and fictional characters, rather than having the real brains behind the battles at center stage, you'll probably be bored to tears by it. If you want as good a recreation of a famous battle as you can probably get, this movie's for you.

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.

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 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.