Word: wellington
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Duke of Wellington may have believed that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Napoleon was sure that the French General Staff had failed him. Sergei Bondarchuk has another idea. Though the English and French exchanged considerable fire and shed small oceans of blood, they had very little to do with the outcome. The beau stratagem was performed by old General Blücher and his vindictive Prussians. They and they alone are responsible for the outcome in Waterloo, or, as its subtitle might read, History Revised for Anglophobes...
...that was on home grounds. This time, on western European turf, he rather favors the little Corsican with properly heroic proportions. But he gives the British aristocracy only the back of his hand. Every man Jack of them is portrayed as an arbitrary prig, none more so than Wellington (Christopher Plummer). Yet even these lead soldiers give more credible performances than Rod Steiger in his oppressive, self-congratulatory Napoleon. Scene after marching scene, every familiar Steigerian trick passes in review: the pop eyes, the mouth like a gunny sack with the strings drawn, and below all, the voice that CLIMBS...
...Peace, Bondarchuk found himself at home with war and inept with peace. In Waterloo, he again directs less than he deploys. Psychological insight is conveyed by closeups of the stars' eyes, interminable crosscuts from the Duke of Wellington to Napoleon Bonaparte and fatuous "voiceover" soliloquies, like Napoleon's: "This Englishman has two qualities that I admire-caution, and above all courage...
Eagle's View. It is, unfortunately, a fleeting triumph. Almost too late for Wellington but none too soon for the viewer, the Prussians, all teeth and bayonets, burst from the woods to end the battle. As they do, the score blares a Haydn anthem. The theme, Bondarchuk is well aware, became the melody for Deutschland über Alles. The subtlety of that touch matches H.A.L. Craig's screenplay and Steiger's Napoleon...
Waterloo is not without its educational value, though even that would have been enhanced by a clearer map than the one Wellington uses; the youthful student or amateur will at least learn the elementary strategies of the period and enjoy an eagle's view of the battle that changed Europe's life. As for the golden history and legend, they lie buried beneath this delayed replay of a primer on strategy...