WATERLOO

 As CGI becomes more affordable, the low budget historical spectacular is within our grasp…Musings on the value of History, and the morality of War as entertainment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love costume pictures, in which present day issues are mirrored in the past, while relationships and events play out amid spectacular sets and landscapes. It’s an expensive undertaking; consequently many historical pictures do not recoup their cost, making this genre ever harder to finance. So we have to find ways of making them cheaper. Tighter schedules, digital set extensions, combined with computer crowd and battle technology is the way to go.

My appetite for historical epics was sharpened by a recent visit to Waterloo in Belgium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jean-Pol Grandmot

This is the Lions Hillock, the monument built to commemorate the battle of Waterloo.

As a clash of armies, the defeat of Napoleon by the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo reshaped nineteenth century Europe.
As an epic movie WATERLOO (1970) was a bit disappointing. I worked on the trailer in England, then saw the finished film in Australia 6 months later, hoping that a good post production finish would take the picture to the next level. I guess - try as we do sometimes - you can‘t fix a script in the mix. Take a look at this trailer someone recently posted on U Tube - images set to Ennio Morricone - which puts an interesting flavor into the panoramic tableaux style of Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk.
The true story of the battle of Waterloo is in fact a very exciting story - it could have been a battle action race-against-the-clock movie. The international cut (130 mins) had some nice moments but overall felt a little lethargic; spectacular but lacking the visceral cut and thrust of Braveheart-style battle scenes. Most expensive epics of that era needed to obtain a ‘U’ certificate (universal exhibition with no age restriction) from the British Board of Film Censors, to reach the widest British audience. Nor did the film greatly illuminate the characters of Napoleon and Wellington.

Perhaps the Russian cut, around 4 hours, told a richer story.

 

Christopher Plummer carefully underplays Wellington, knowing perhaps of Rod Steiger’s tendency to gnash at the scenery, which he always did with great charisma. As with William Shatner, it was part of Steiger’s appeal as an actor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I looked out over the Waterloo landscape, not greatly changed from the Belgian farmland of Sunday June 18th, 1815, I wondered what great stories could be told in a high end mini-series, covering the battle experiences of the lowliest ranks to the commanding generals. And how to make it appealing to American audiences, an important factor for recouping investment. Involve American characters. Add a female perspective.

Below me, on that wet early morning, two armies of approximately 70,000 each faced each other along a two and a half mile front, bisected by that distant road. Wikipedia provides a very concise account of the battle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s my pocket version. Wellington, with mainly inexperienced troops and 100 fewer artillery pieces than Napoleon, had to hold his position long enough to receive re-enforcements from Prussian General Blucher,

whose troops had received a severe mauling at French hands the day before, and were regrouping slowly. Blucher, a 70 year old man, was leading his men forward on horseback despite being wounded in the previous day’s battle. That’s one tough senior citizen. Napoleon, with veteran troops, had to defeat Wellington before the two armies could unite against him. Napoleon was confident because he had something Wellington did not - 14 regiments of armored cavalry, 7 regiments of lancers, while Wellington had only a handful of lancers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the battlefield was sodden from a night of rain. Bad for cavalry maneuvers. Bad for artillery too. Cannonballs would embed in mud, rather than skip along hard ground, creating a swath of destruction. So Napoleon had to wait for the ground to dry, knowing that Blucher was inching closer every hour, though he too was delayed by muddy roads. At 11:30 Napoleon could wait no longer and ordered a series of attacks, driving a wedge into Wellington‘s position. It was thrust and parry all day. In the Iron Duke’s words: “the nearest-run thing you ever saw.” If Blucher had not arrived around 4 pm, Wellington would have been forced to retreat.

As it turned out, it was Napoleon’s army that was driven from the field in disorder. His carriage was found abandoned, still containing a pouch of diamonds. Casualties from both armies totaled over 47,000 dead and wounded. All in the space of a few hours. Today, it’s hard to imagine the emotional, social, and economic impact of such loss of life if it were to happen today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This scull from the battlefield is on display at the museum in Waterloo that was once the inn used by Wellington as his headquarters. That’s probably a roundshot hole. Artillery would also fire ball, canister and chain. There’s an example of the effects of chain scything down rows of infantry near Al Pacino in REVOLUTION. Suffice to say, the wounded suffered terribly. It took 3 days before the last wounded men still alive received what passed for battlefield medicine then.

The human cost of his ambitions were never Napoleon’s concern. He was a man drunk on the elixir of conquest and domination, and such men have to be stopped.

Two portraits of Napoleon, one bloated with pride,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the other humiliated by Abdication.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Wellington was the defense-savvy general to stop him. A master of ambush, parry and counter attack.

I have a particular affection for Wellington, because from age 13 to 18, I attended the school founded in his name, Wellington College in England, which encouraged my interest in drama in general and cinema in particular. Funded by the school with a couple of pounds sterling worth of 8mm film, I shot my first battle scene at 17, with 20 members of the Cadet Corps, blank ammunition, and thunder flashes. I learned, to paraphrase Robert Duvall, that I love the smell of cordite in the morning. (Perhaps Wellington has a lot to answer for! But I would love to show today’s Cadet Corps my Siege of Firebase Gloria.)

But what if Napoleon had not been stopped? What if he had put Wellington to flight, then turned and blasted Blucher’s advancing columns. The war weary allied powers might have made an accommodating peace, Britain might have stepped back, leaving Europe to sort out its own problems. Britain might never have become the world power that its leadership in the victory over France ensured. The map of Europe would certainly have been different by the dawn of the 20th century. Would the unification of Germanic states under Prussia have taken place or not? Then, would there have been a World War One, which led inevitably from the punitive peace imposed on Germany, to the rise of Hitler and World War Two? What if..? That question is one of the reasons that history fascinates me. I recommend the New York Times best seller WHAT IF…? edited by Robert Crowley that first hooked me on counterfactual historical scenarios. I’d like to make a few What If movies. What if Hitler had won…

So, back to the movie of WATERLOO. It’s certainly watchable, and maybe screening the DVD will encourage some people to read one of the many excellent books on this turning point in European history. But I saw more of Sergei Bondarchuk’s camera flair in his 6 hour War and Peace ( 1968). You will see what I mean in this extract from the battle of Borodino sequence. ( German language version) Incredible visualization.

History is a great tutor. As has been said, if we do not learn its lessons, we are condemned to repeat its mistakes. As we teach children ethics, we should teach them history as well. Not just Euro-centric history either, but world history. The teaching of history as a tool for social progress is undervalued in many educational systems. Training to be good worker bees and consumers is not enough, as competition for the planet’s resources becomes more intense. Broader knowledge of different cultural histories will promote greater understanding between peoples, and over time lessen the likelihood of conflict. Perhaps history will view the Obama Presidency as a turning point in conflict resolution.

Certainly I hope by the end of this century wars will be relegated to the role of museum pieces, viewed on your home theatre wide screen as cautionary artifacts. I have enjoyed making my five war themed movies, yet I recognize that the genre contributes to the glorification of state sanctioned mass murder, generally initiated for economic gain but cloaked by righteous indignation. In war movies, the flags, the bugles, the heroism, all the images that contribute to the insidious seductiveness of war, even when contrasted with the horrors of combat, nonetheless celebrate an activity that we should, as a species, have put behind us by now. Why do audiences return time and again to the war story? War is inherently dramatic, providing the opportunity to witness a character’s self transcendence, to vicariously experience danger at a heightened level. Yet our attraction to these films helps make the fetish of warfare seem an unavoidable force of nature. It’s a thorny double standard for those of us that make war movies. Guilty as charged, I remain drawn to such films. Here’s another extract from ZULU, where that under rated film maker Cy Raker Endfield slides in some 1964-style anti-war message between battles.
Perhaps he saw Vietnam coming…