When Good Directors Go Bad: Waterloo (1970, Sergei Bondarchuk)

Paul Clark — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Of all the great cinematic epics, none is bigger than Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace. Simply put, everything about the film is massive- its budget (upwards of $100 million in 1960s dollars), its production schedule (nearly five years), its cast (tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers were used as extras in the battle sequences), even its running time of nearly eight hours. Yet War and Peace would merely be a footnote in movie history if its largesse was its only notable quality. Reviews of the day praised it not only for its epic scope and impeccable production values but also for its emotional sensitivity and human drama. Even today, War and Peace remains a masterpiece of its kind, and the rare adaptation of a great novel that does justice to its classic source material. For this not insignificant miracle, credit should be given not only to the Soviet film industry but also to Bondarchuk's sure-footed direction.

After the international acclaim for War and Peace, Bondarchuk decided to make a film about The Battle of Waterloo. For most filmmakers, this would have seemed a hugely ambitious project, but compared to War and Peace, a seemingly modest one for Bondarchuk. In order to bring the project to the screen, Bondarchuk received financial backing from Italian super-producer Dino De Laurentiis, and together they enlisted several well-known actors, led by Rod Steiger as Napoleon and Christopher Plummer as the Duke of Wellington. In addition, the film's $25 million budget afforded Bondarchuk the chance to re-create the battle on the same scale as the wartime sequences in War and Peace. But despite these factors, Waterloo was a disappointment both with critics and with audiences, garnering mostly middling reviews and making back less than one-fifth of its original budget, and sending its once-hot director back to the USSR for the rest of his career.

After Waterloo flopped big-time at the box office, De Laurentiis chalked its failure up to the lack of big-money stars in the cast. But while it's tempting to wonder what sort of Napoleon could be played by De Laurentiis' first choice Richard Burton, I'd say that Steiger did just fine with the role. This is especially true in the character's more grandiose moments- Steiger was always a magnificent ham, and Napoleon gave him a chance to cut loose in some entertaining ways that livened up the film. And for his part, Plummer did a capable job as the arrogant upper-class general Wellington.

Likewise, I'd say the battle sequences are as spectacular as advertised. As in War and Peace, the sight of thousands upon thousands of actual humans on the battlefield is still impressive, and still impossible to duplicate with CGI. In order for the sheer magnitude to achieve its intended effect, Bondarchuk films most of the battle in long shots, the better to comprehend the narrative of the battle itself. I also liked Bondarchuk's use of "God's eye" shots at several times in the battle, especially when the English Army forms itself into tight squares to fight off the advancing French cavalry. Had Bondarchuk tried to make a tactics-heavy recreation of the battle a la Cy Endfield's Zulu, Waterloo might have been a classic.

As it stands, the film is a missed opportunity, primarily because he and screenwriter H.A.L. Craig simply can't find a way to successfully integrate his principal characters into the battle. One of the triumphs of War and Peace was that Bondarchuk made us care about the people who were fighting the battle. But rather than exploring the lives of some of the soldiers in any kind of depth, Bondarchuk concentrates his narrative on Wellington and Napoleon and the differences in their approaches to war. This contrast is fairly interesting early on, but once the battle begins the tactic stops working. After all, it's hard to care about two men who essentially stand back and watch as thousands of men march to their deaths.

Today, any notoriety Waterloo may have comes mostly from the rumor that its disappointing box office performance led to production being shut down on Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. But whether or not this is the case, the bile this idea summons up in some cinephiles is somewhat unfair. After all, hugely expensive epics were on their way out, and besides, Kubrick made A Clockwork Orange instead, so it's not like his career took much of a hit. Taken on its own terms, Waterloo ultimately doesn't work, but there are dazzling sequences that demonstrate what a gifted filmmaker Bondarchuk was, and it's a shame that more of his work isn't available in the U.S. I guess seeing him “go bad” on such a grand scale has made me want to see him make good again.

Reviews By Request: Zulu (1964, Cy Endfield)

Paul Clark — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:00:00 GMT

This review was requested by reader James Frazier. For details on how you can request a review of a film of your choice, see the footnote that follows this review.

For many people, the age of British colonialism has become a controversial period. In our modern ideological climate, imperialism has practically become a dirty word among many historians, who object to the way the United Kingdom and other colonizing countries steamrolled less developed cultures in order to further their own. There are a number of interesting movies that explore this idea, but Cy Endfield’s Zulu is not one of them, and it doesn’t try to be. It’s a rousing war picture in the classic tradition, made before the unpopularity of the Vietnam War made it almost impossible to make a war movie that wasn’t in some way or other about ideology.

Zulu is, first and foremost, a painstaking recreation of the 1879 Battle of Rorke’s Drift, a skirmish that pitted roughly 100 British soldiers against over 4,000 Zulu warriors. The first few reels of Zulu are devoted to introducing the characters and establishing the context for the battle, but the remainder of the film focuses solely on the progress of the battle itself. Not being a student of military history, I can’t speak to how accurate the film is. I only know that it’s completely convincing and satisfying in a dramatic sense, showing in great detail the way the outnumbered and overmatched British repelled the attacks by the Zulus and held their ground.

Rorke’s Drift was in the African colony of Natal, situated in the middle of what was traditionally Zulu territory. In the film, three men hold some measure of power over the outpost: young Lt. Gonnville Bromhead (played by Michael Caine in his first major role), engineering officer Lt. John Chard (Stanley Baker), and Rev. Otto Witt (Jack Hawkins), a missionary who along with his daughter presides over the church. But rather than simply focusing on these three men and allowing the others to fade into the background, Endfield takes the time to introduce us to many of their subordinates at the outpost: the medical corps, the quartermasters and cooks, and the various regiments, which hail from all over the United Kingdom.

On first glance, the first third of the film feels bogged down with character introductions, but Endfield’s efforts pay off once the battle itself begins. If the pre-battle scenes are leisurely, the battle is a model of efficiency. Having established the characters and their relationships, Zulu is now able to concentrate on the military aspects of the battle without being slowed by the demands of plot resolution. If there film provides any conventional setup-and-payoff, it’s in the small character touches that come as each major character behaves according to his nature. Consider the way Lt. Chard and Lt. Bromhead decide who is in command- Bromhead, who is of noble birth, resents an engineering officer trying to take command, but once Chard informs him of his greater experience (a matter of months, as it turns out), Bromhead backs down and the issue is never raised again.

As the battle continues, the theme that comes through most clearly is the idea of honor through duty. By most people’s standards, it was crazy for the British not to retreat from Rorke’s Drift when faced with an army of Zulu warriors, especially when a much larger contingent of British soldiers had just been massacred by the Zulus earlier that day. But for Lt. Chard and Lt. Bromhead, there’s never a question of whether they’ll stay and fight. They’ve sworn their allegiance to the Crown, and if the Crown wants to keep a presence at Rorke’s Drift, then their honor, and that of Britain, rests on them standing their ground. That’s what most of the civilians in the film don’t understand- a band of Boer mercenaries on horseback retreats when they discover what they’re up against, and Rev. Witt is eventually sent away by Chard, both for railing against the battle and simply because his presence isn’t doing any damn good.

Meanwhile, the soldiers have no choice but to fight. As Tennyson wrote, “theirs was not to reason why/ theirs was but to do and die.” Yet in the face of almost certain death, they stand their ground and repel the Zulu attacks again and again. Some of the most fascinating scenes in the film deal with the strategies employed by the British to defend their post, most of which appear to be improvised. I especially liked the way Chard set a trap for the Zulus by pulling soldiers away from the walls to lure them in, only to spring a trap on them once they’re inside. Little wonder than Zulu is one of Ridley Scott’s favorite movies, or that both Black Hawk Down and Kingdom of Heaven owe a great deal to Endfield’s film.

After the battle is over, the Zulus appear once more on the hills around Rorke’s Drift, but not for the reason the British think. Rather than attacking again, they chant for their worthy opponents, in celebration for their skill on the battlefield. Yet in the aftermath of their victory, Lt. Chard and Lt. Bromhead are more conflicted. Bromhead, still young and inexperienced, turns to his elder officer and says, “I feel afraid and there's something more- I feel ashamed.” Chard, ever the pragmatist, can only respond, “I came here to build a bridge.”

Previous Reviews by Request:

Baxter (1989, Jérôme Boivin)

Now, it’s your turn. What movie would you like me to review for the next installment of Reviews by Request? Let me know in the comments section below. To refresh your memory, here are the rules for requesting a movie to be reviewed: (1) it has to be a movie I haven’t seen, (2) it has to be available through Netflix, and (3) please only request one film. Other than that, anything is fair game (except for Fair Game which, alas, I’ve already seen). First to suggest a movie that qualifies gets their requested review. See you in two weeks!

The Screengrab : cy endfield

When Good Directors Go Bad: Waterloo (1970, Sergei Bondarchuk)

Reviews By Request: Zulu (1964, Cy Endfield)