| Tango01 | 20 Mar 2015 9:21 p.m. PST |
"Waterloo, released in 1970, is a war movie that had some pretty big stars and also won a few awards. Yet in the decades since, it's been all but forgotten. Which is a tragedy, since its ridiculously epic production is one of the most amazing stories in cinema history. When I say epic, I mean epic. Waterloo is a movie that at first looks big and explosive, but once you know the scale and the story behind it, its battle scenes become something almost more than cinema; you admire them as much for their engineering as their art. The film is based on not just the Battle of Waterloo, but the entire campaign leading up to it, which later became known as the "Hundred Days". It runs a little over two hours, and in that time covers a bit of dancing, a bit of talking and a lot of fighting…"
Full article here
link Amicalement
Armand |
| Major Function | 20 Mar 2015 10:59 p.m. PST |
I have this movie on my computer. I first saw this when I was 10, that was 45 years ago. |
| MadDrMark | 21 Mar 2015 3:01 a.m. PST |
I just showed this film to a class of high school seniors to kick off our unit on Napoleonic warfare. I had to stop the film several times to explain what was happening (why was the Hougoumont was so important? What's the deal with Grouchy?). I wonder how 1970 audiences, with little to no knowledge of the battle, would have understood the film's narrative. But despite the film's age, my kids ate it up. The set pieces are truly spectacular, even 45 years on. They even enjoyed the dialogue, which personally strikes me as stilted quote dropping. They even enjoyed the bits of direction that seem cheesy now. On that swirly overhead shot of Bonaparte when he learns that the Prussians have arrived, one of my students dutifully shouted "Khaaaaan!" |
| Tango01 | 21 Mar 2015 10:38 a.m. PST |
Very good memory my friend. Amicalement
Armand |
| jim 39 | 21 Mar 2015 12:14 p.m. PST |
A great movie it is shame if you never get to see it on one of the real big screens that almost all gone now. The same director, Sergei Bondarchuk, made the Soviet era four film series of War and Peace 1966-7 with Austerlitz and Borodino in the second and third films. link |
| MarkCorbett | 21 Mar 2015 12:49 p.m. PST |
I think the job could be done better now… I was hoping for another attempt to coincide with the bicentenary. Some of the wide shots are pretty awful in the 1970 film, the use of open order doesn't look right at all. Exploding cannon shot too, now cgi could sort that out. |
| mashrewba | 21 Mar 2015 1:54 p.m. PST |
Yes – they'd make the explosions bigger. |
| darthfozzywig | 22 Mar 2015 9:37 a.m. PST |
And add a personal duel between Napoleon and Wellington. But Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as Wellington would still be Oscar-worthy. |
| MadDrMark | 22 Mar 2015 10:17 a.m. PST |
Add Napoleon's wise African advisor (played by Morgan Freeman) and a large part for Josephine (played by Scarlett Johansson), seeking to reconcile with Bonaparte in a bedroom scene described by People Magazine as "…Fifty Shades of Scots Greys!" Gentlemen, I think we have ourselves a hit! |
| mashrewba | 22 Mar 2015 11:38 a.m. PST |
"…Fifty Shades of Scots Greys!" laugh out loud moment  "a personal duel between Napoleon and Wellington." -yes but only after a long horse chase takes them miles from the battle field -this of course is an old Hollywood tradition. |
| Murvihill | 23 Mar 2015 9:37 a.m. PST |
"-yes but only after a long horse chase takes them miles from the battle field -this of course is an old Hollywood tradition." Including galloping through a windmill and down the vanes… |
gets started with Flintloque.
