Bondarchuk Family - Waterloo (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Waterloo (Russian: ) is a 1970 Soviet-Italian film directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. It was the story of the preliminary events and the Battle of Waterloo, and was famous for its lavish battle scenes, which film maker Peter Jackson used as inspiration for the battle scenes of his popular The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. After it was made, the film failed at the box office; it later attracted an audience on TV and video. It starred Rod Steiger (portraying Napoleon Bonaparte) and Christopher Plummer (portraying the Duke of Wellington) with cameos by Orson Welles (Louis XVIII of France). Other stars included Jack Hawkins as General Picton, Virginia McKenna as the Duchess of Richmond and Dan O'Herlihy as Marshal Ney, whom he closely resembled. The film includes some 15,000 Soviet foot soldiers as extras and 2,000 cavalrymen, some of which were Cossack horsemen ("it was said that, during its making, director Sergei Bondarchuk was in command of the seventh largest army in the world" ). Fifty circus stunt riders were used to perform the dangerous horse falls. These numbers brought an epic quality to the battle scenes. This is particularly true of the panning aerial shots of Marshal Ney's cavalry charging up and over the escarpment to break like a wave around the British squares. The slow motion section of the charge of the Scots Greys is a tribute to the painting "Scotland Forever " by Lady Butler in Leeds City Art Gallery. The film opens on Ch teau de Fontainebleau in 1814. Paris is besieged by the Austrians and her allies. Napoleon Bonaparte (Steiger) is urged by his marshals to abdicate but he refuses, defiant. Upon hearing the surrender of his last army under Auguste Marmont he realises that finally all is lost ... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=33446