Waterloo Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Waterloo Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 7, 2020

1970 turned out to be something of a banner year for so-called “war films”, even if by 1970 that genre had at least occasionally begun to tip over into “anti-war films”. Though it actually had December 1969 screenings to qualify it for the Academy Awards (a wise decision, since it ended up winning several, including Best Picture), Patton may be the best remembered of these, though it certainly had a fair amount of competition from a host of other titles, including two from Patton’s own studio, 20th Century Fox: M*A*S*H and Tora! Tora! Tora!. But quite other ostensibly high profile war (anti- or otherwise) films appeared that year, including Catch-22, Kelly's Heroes, and Little Big Man. Somewhat lost in the shuffle, at least in the United States where it bombed pretty infamously, was another war film that like Tora! Tora! Tora! had been a hugely budgeted international co-production of absolutely immense proportions. In that regard, it’s at least arguable from a production standpoint if not from box office that Waterloo was the “biggest” war film of 1970, even if very few in markets other than the United Kingdom and/or the (then) Soviet Union actually saw it during a theatrical exhibition.

Had Waterloo been released in the mid- to late sixties, which was the original plan by producer Dino de Laurentiis, chances are it might have scored more with audiences in the United States, at least. What was, according to a really interesting overview by Sheldon Hull offered on the disc as a supplement, initially planned to be a circa 1965-67 release starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole and directed by John Huston (who had worked with the producer on The Bible: In the Beginning...), ended up getting delayed by several years due to various challenges, not the least of which was finding enough financing, along with scouting locations that would be expansive enough to recreate one of the most epochal battles in the history of war. By the time the dust had settled, Burton and O'Toole had departed and de Laurentiis had put together an Italian-Soviet coalition, with the film settling on a two square mile property in Ukraine to do the actual filming. In what was probably a "marriage of convenience", Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk was brought on to the project, as he had at that point just recently brought home the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film for his epic multi-part adaptation of War and Peace, a film which obviously had some tie-ins to this project, and which had the added benefit of providing both costumes and props that were still left over and could be repurposed.

In terms of the recreation of the battle of Waterloo, this film is an absolutely jaw dropping viewing experience, with Bondarchuk capturing the action from both at times gruesomely "up close and personal" perspectives, as well as more vertiginous aerial photography that gives an overpowering idea of the sheer scale of the fracas. As Hull gets into in his analysis, there was actually a bit of an uproar in the United Kingdom at the time when it was revealed that many of the horses used in the film had to be put down after sustaining serious injuries, and in fact some scenes from the film were shorn for its British exhibition, since the censorship board there won't allow any on screen harm to animals be depicted. There are numerous instances in this film, though, where it seems obvious that horses probably perished, and so those with acute sensibilities in this regard should be forewarned.

On a more "intimate" level, though, Waterloo probably falls flat as a pancake, which is really not the fault of the committed cast, or at least not completely their fault. Rod Steiger is actually surprisingly unmannered as Napoleon, and while he occasionally lapses into a quasi-French accent, he doesn't really exploit a "tic filled" characterization that he might have been assumed to have relied upon. Christopher Plummer doesn't have the same opportunities to strut his stuff as Wellington, but he offers a stolid, perhaps even slightly tragic, account of the ostensible victor of the battle. A number of other notable names drift in and out of the production, often in quasi-cameos, including Orson Welles and Jack Hawkins. But this is really a film about the battle scenes rather than any of the individual humans in them.

Waterloo Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Waterloo is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Imprint and ViaVision with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is an often striking looking presentation, with Bondarchuk and cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi making the most of the widescreen ratio throughout, and not necessarily only with regard to some of the awesome (in both senses of that word) battle recreations. There are also a number of (at times extreme) close-ups, and fine detail is inviting on those, but even in some midrange shots, where textures of the ornate costumes and practical props and settings are typically impressive. The color timing here is a little odd looking at times, and there are some fluctuations in both overall warmth and densities. A lot of the later scenes are staged almost as tableaux, and I'm assuming the almost hazy blue-gray ambience of much of this footage was a deliberate stylistic choice. Some moments can look slightly faded, with flesh tones skewing toward brown. Grain resolves naturally throughout.

Waterloo Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Waterloo has a rather boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that offers a substantially more powerful listening experience than the also included LPCM 2.0 track (which is fine on its own merits). Nino Rota contributes a really forceful, brass inflected score that kind of slyly reinvents La Marseillaise, and the surround track supports some of his more punchy cues superbly. But of course it's the battle scenes where surround activity is probably most overt, and while a little "stagy" at times, the effects range from discrete channelization in things like gunfire to panning as calvary marauds across the field. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is pretty huge, including everything from Napoleon's almost whispered narration to the cacophonous sounds of thousands engaged in hand to hand combat.

Waterloo Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Sheldon Hull on Waterloo (1080p; 37:36) is a really interesting overview that gets into both the film's genesis (which was long in a gestational phase, as alluded to above) and its production. Hull states the film did do huge business in England, and apparently in the Soviet Union as well.


• Original Theatrical Trailer (480i; 3:29)


• Imprint Trailer (1080p; 00:26)

Waterloo Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is an absolutely gargantuan production, and as such it succeeds more as spectacle than as anything that's going to actually touch some real human emotion. Those who like amazingly staged battle sequences should almost certainly seek this out, but even they should not expect much other than pomp and pageantry. Technical merits are solid and the supplement with Sheldon Hull is very interesting, for those who are considering a purchase.