Waterloo

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.

I only discovered Waterloo a couple of years ago and that was after buying the DVD for £4 in Asda! What a bargain buy it turned out to be, a true classic in every sense of the word.

The two main protagonists Napoleon and Wellington are portrayed superbly by Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer respectively, as we get a really detailed insight into both men's characters. These 2 generals had a special rivalry in 19th century military history and the way real quotes are dropped in at certain points during the movie is top class. Napoleon was the man to beat in 1815 and Wellington had his eyes very much set on that prize, this is well exemplified just before the battle commences when a soldier asks Wellington to fire a cannon shot when Napoleon rides into range, to which Wellington replies somewhat aghast "Certainly not, commanders of armies have something better to do than to fire at one another". Wellington knew this would be the battle that would make or break him, and he wanted Napoleon there operating at his best.

Another quote from the movie which embodies the respect and honour associated with this period of military history; Wellington is observing the French preparations for the commencement of battle, watching over the pomp and ritual somewhat contemptuously but also in admiration, "Dramatic fellows, these French, music and banners, quite beautiful."

As far as I am aware the historical attention to detail is second to none with all the main areas included such as the lead-up to the battle at Ligny and Quatre Bras. Furthermore the battle appears to go exactly how historians would have wanted with plenty of emphasis put on every area of the battlefield. Sometimes in Britain and among Anglo-Saxons the battle is simply described as the Brits beating the French, however the movie sticks to historical facts and shows it was very much an Allied army that won at Waterloo with only something like 20%-30% of it comprising of British soldiers. The rest of the Allied force was made up of Prussians, Hessians, Hanoverians, Dutch, Belgians, Danes. This was very much a broad European coalition.

Another great thing about this film is that even though Bonaparte was essentially the 'tyrant' we get such an insight into his character and into Bonaparte 'the man' that you feel sorry that he loses the battle in the end up.

The battle scenes are truly lavish, a real epic of a film.

Top top drawer.

For me its a 10 out of 10 !

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.

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.