Waterloo (1970)
Directed by Sergei Bondarchuk

Film Review

Dino De Laurentiis, the celebrated Italian film producer who lent his support to such diverse films as Fellini's La Strada (1954) and Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968), came close to meeting his own Waterloo when he became mired in this monstrously over-ambitious historical epic.  Having failed to raise the necessary big bucks elsewhere, he turned to the Russian film company Mosfilm, who generously stumped up a third of the film's colossal 25 million dollar budget.  As it turned out, an alliance with the Soviets was just what De Laurentiis needed to realise his grand design.  Filming in the Ukraine would be far less costly than elsewhere in the West and De Laurentiis could call upon the support of the Red Army, who supplied around 16,000 soldiers (including nearly 2000 cavalrymen).  Labour costs were minimal, and so a vast area of farmland in the Ukraine could be convincingly transformed into a muddy battlefield without bringing down the entire Italian economy.  Apparently, 5000 trees were transplanted and two hills flattened in the name of artistic verisimilitude.  The Cold War did have its upside.

For such a grand undertaking, who better to direct it than Sergei Bondarchuk, the acclaimed Russian cineaste who had recently helmed the most expensive film in history, the seven hour epic that was War and Peace (1965)?   For his first English language film, Bondarchuk was fortunate to have a cast consisting predominately of distinguished British and American actors, including Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer in the lead roles of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington.  A by now severely overweight Orson Welles makes a brief but magnificent cameo appearance as King Louis XVIII, whilst an impressive supporting cast offers such familiar faces as Virginia McKenna, Rupert Davies, Michael Wilding and Terence Alexander.  Despite the abundance of acting talent at his disposal, Bondarchuk appears to be far more preoccupied with spectacle than drama, and so once all of the characters have been introduced (with indecent haste) the focus soon shifts to the battlefield, where most of them get casually slaughtered.

The only reason anyone would want to watch Waterloo is to marvel at its climactic battle sequence, which takes up most of the second half of the film and cannot fail to leave a lasting impression.  Most of this sequence was shot with five Panavision cameras running simultaneously, the footage edited together to deliver a cinematic experience of unprecedented nerve-racking ferocity. The sheer scale of the battle is enough to take your breath away, but it is Bondarchuk's masterful direction that draws the spectator into the heart of the smoking, blood-saturated conflict and drives home the gruesome reality of a 19th century military skirmish.  What the film shows us is a scene straight out of Hell, a scene of fury and confusion, in which men and horses charge relentlessly against canon and rifle fire, to be butchered in a boiling cauldron of savagery.  Tracking aerial shots of the battlefield deliver a profound sense of awe and horror at the scale of the carnage, although the biggest shock comes only when the hostilities have ceased and we are confronted with the terrible human cost of the battle.  If nothing else, Waterloo offers us cinema's most authentic and ambitious depiction of a Napoleonic battle.  Unfortunately, it falls down in virtually every other respect.

The film's main failing is that it makes hardly any attempt to develop any of the characters, so most become little more than ciphers.  The only character that is convincingly drawn is Napoleon, but his tendency to speak in pompous epigrams, coupled with Steiger's painful overacting, does little to endear him to the audience.  Christopher Plummer's Duke of Wellington is a more likable proposition, although the character is underwritten and feels more like a caricature than someone who might actually have been a real person.  Wellington's final exchange with one of his generals provides a welcome moment of light relief (Ubridge: "By God, Sir. I've lost my leg." Wellington: "By God, Sir. So you have.") but other than this the writing is pretty lacklustre, and the performances likewise.  Nino Rota's score is equally below par - it sounds as if he may have composed it in his sleep.

Despite some very favourable reviews and a great deal of press attention, Waterloo was only moderately successful at the box office and failed to recoup its massive production cost.  The film's lukewarm reception led director Stanley Kubrick to abandon his own plans to make a film on the life of Napoleon (reputedly the greatest film he never made).  It is believed that the film originally ran to four hours, but was cut back to half this length just prior to its release (hence the apparent discrepancies in the closing credits). Waterloo received no Oscar nominations but won two BAFTAs (for its Art Direction and Costume Design) in 1971.   Since its first release in 1970, the film's reputation has steadily grown and today it is well-regarded, mainly on the strength of its magnificent battle sequence, which was virtually unsurpassed until the advent of computer generated effects.  Waterloo may not be the greatest of historical epics, but it is hard not to be impressed by the enormity of its ambition and the mindboggling effort that went into realising this ambition.

Film Synopsis

With Paris besieged by the armies of Austria and her allies, the Emperor Napoleon has no option but to abdicate and he is soon living in exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba.  Ten months later, Napoleon escapes from his island prison and, upon his arrival in France, soon assembles a small army.  Realising that the newly restored monarchy is threatened, King Louis XVIII commands Marshal Ney to capture the former emperor and bring him back in an iron cage.  When Ney's troops encounter their enemy's on the road to Grenoble, they are won over to Napoleon's side.  On his return to Paris, Napoleon receives a hero's welcome from the people, but once again his country is soon at war with the rest of Europe.  Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, leads the British campaign to bring Napoleon to heel, engaging the emperor's armies on France's northern border with Belgium.  The date is 18th June 1815.  A heavy downfall of rain increases Wellington's chances of success, allowing him to choose his own battlefield.  Waterloo will be the site of the historical battle, a battle that will change the course of European history and bring a decisive end to Napoleon's reign...