I watched Waterloo (1970) last week and I wanted more, so I finished this 6h30m marathon a few days ago and it is truly an astounding achievement of film history. To be fair though, when the...
I watched Waterloo (1970) last week and I wanted more, so I finished this 6h30m marathon a few days ago and it is truly an astounding achievement of film history. To be fair though, when the Soviet Union has your back, you can get quite a few things done.
12,000 Red Army soldiers were used as extras
The director had a heart attack while shooting a major action set piece which took three months to film
After the film won its Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, the authorities intimidated Bondarchuk into joining the Communist Party
Successfully filming scenes in one take in which big sets are really burnt down all around the actors
Cameramen on zip line cables that would burn out after three or four takes
TV Tropes has some different claims compared to the Vulture article so I excluded the fact about the budget as it seems there's disagreement there.
My own little review:
I liked parts 1 and 3, really disliking parts 2 and 4. The former showing the battle of Austerlitz and Borodino which were great to watch, the latter being more about the personal character end of things. There is always spectacle, yes, but it is not equally well executed I thought. However it may be a personal issue as I have always had trouble reading between the lines, meaning I was multiple times left confused as to what was even happening on screen. It was hard to follow the story at times, jumping from one thing to the next with near-zero explanation. So you can't just lean back and enjoy - the viewer has to do some work to understand things fully.
But that might be my contemporary western understanding of filmmaking clashing with this, my first foray into Soviet film. I also found it very strange that the director cast himself in the role of a protagonist despite being twice as old as the character from the book - he was ~45 at the time of filming even though the character is supposed to be in his early 20's. So that really didn't work for me. However, this movie was made for a Russian audience who have all likely read War and Peace in school, so they probably already knew the ins and outs, the names, the characters, the themes. So it might sour my opinion a little bit as the story itself was new to me too, not just the adaptation.
But it was still very well worth it to watch this and I recommend it to anyone! It was truly a spectacle, and it was incredible to watch - same goes for Waterloo, by the way. They really don't make them like they used to.
I watched Waterloo (1970) last week and I wanted more, so I finished this 6h30m marathon a few days ago and it is truly an astounding achievement of film history. To be fair though, when the Soviet Union has your back, you can get quite a few things done.
12,000 Red Army soldiers were used as extras
The director had a heart attack while shooting a major action set piece which took three months to film
After the film won its Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, the authorities intimidated Bondarchuk into joining the Communist Party
Successfully filming scenes in one take in which big sets are really burnt down all around the actors
Cameramen on zip line cables that would burn out after three or four takes
TV Tropes has some different claims compared to the Vulture article so I excluded the fact about the budget as it seems there's disagreement there.
My own little review:
I liked parts 1 and 3, really disliking parts 2 and 4. The former showing the battle of Austerlitz and Borodino which were great to watch, the latter being more about the personal character end of things. There is always spectacle, yes, but it is not equally well executed I thought. However it may be a personal issue as I have always had trouble reading between the lines, meaning I was multiple times left confused as to what was even happening on screen. It was hard to follow the story at times, jumping from one thing to the next with near-zero explanation. So you can't just lean back and enjoy - the viewer has to do some work to understand things fully.
But that might be my contemporary western understanding of filmmaking clashing with this, my first foray into Soviet film. I also found it very strange that the director cast himself in the role of a protagonist despite being twice as old as the character from the book - he was ~45 at the time of filming even though the character is supposed to be in his early 20's. So that really didn't work for me. However, this movie was made for a Russian audience who have all likely read War and Peace in school, so they probably already knew the ins and outs, the names, the characters, the themes. So it might sour my opinion a little bit as the story itself was new to me too, not just the adaptation.
But it was still very well worth it to watch this and I recommend it to anyone! It was truly a spectacle, and it was incredible to watch - same goes for Waterloo, by the way. They really don't make them like they used to.