Waterloo (1970) We decided to jump ahead a few months to post on this one......since it's only a few months away from hitting its 50th Anniversary, why not?
You'd better believe you'll never see another movie like "Waterloo" for all sorts of reasons.......
Mega-budgets epics like this one.......with giant sweep, all star casts, 1000's of extras ......were lumbering into oblivion, dropping deader than dinosaurs tumbling into the tar pits......
Another oddity that you're likely to never see again......'Waterloo' was one of three co-productions between a Western studio and Russia........the other two being 1971's "The Red Tent" and the embarrassing atrocity "The Blue Bird" in 1976......(that's if you don't include the Trump-Russia co-production of the 2016 Presidential election.....)
We sincerely promise we'll get around to "The Red Tent" and "The Blue Bird", but for now, let's talk "Waterloo"......traffic-managed by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuck, who'd impressed the hell out of the cinema world with his 7 hour gargantuan version of "War And Peace".....
So once again, Bonderchuk, armed with multiple cameras, an ample budget and what looks like the entire Red Army at his disposal, puts on a spectacular, panoramic display of 19th century combat.......with Rod Steiger's Napoleon Bonaparte facing off against Christopher Plummer's Duke Of Wellington.......
SPOILER ALERT for those of you who fell asleep in European History class.......Nappy goes down for the count........
Continuing our list of things you'll never see again.......
Rod Steiger......a one-man special effect.......Steiger's eye-bulging, dialed-up-to-11 performance, (his specialty) was a sight to behold........in Zero to Sixty, he could go from a barely audible whisper to a raging air-raid-siren tantrum.....and back again. We're not entirely sure this qualifies as good acting, but we defy you to take your eyes off Steiger when he shifts into full
Steiger-licious madness at the top of his lungs.....
Poor Christopher Plummer couldn't possibly compete with Steiger's self-contained, theatrical fireworks......he's reduced to holding a stiff upper life while his soldiers get blown to smithereens all around him.......(in fact, Plummer made a far more formidable, commanding figure as Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound Of Music".....maybe in the heat of "Waterloo"s carnage, he should have broken out into a few bars of "Eidleweiss"...)
Strangely enough, considering the massive logistics deployed here, the film comes in at a trim 123 minutes. There's no real visual power to the battle scenes, though......Bonderchuk films pitched warfare as if he's a TV news cameraman covering a live re-enactment.
The film does throw in a brief anti-war moment, as some poor sucker faces the camera screaming out "Why are we killing each other?!!" or some such thing......(he's later seen piled up with the dead, no doubt cut down in mid-rant........nice try, pal......except the few ticket-buyers who showed up for "Waterloo" came strictly for the falling bodies and cannon fire.....)
And speaking of those battles, there's something you definitely will NEVER. see again.......thousands upon thousands of real men and horses charging at each other......as opposed to the computerized, pixel-ated crowds you see in today's films...….
Outside of Rod Steiger's hammy histrionics, "Waterloo" finally comes across as a distanced, generic impersonal spectacle...….the language barrier between Bonderchuck and his mostly English speaking cast didn't help matters much. At best, the film aspires to …...efficiency.
But for classic movie lovers, it remains a fascinating artifact of a long gone era of filmmaking......and in that regard, not to be missed 2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2)
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