This film must have a remake, it's such a perfect napoleonic era movie. The thing that ticks me off is nobody has made a movie like this in a long long long time,
instead they make Patriot, Alexander, and tons of dumbass slasher movies!
please if a rich director reads this please, ohh please make a another great napoleonic film.
there is a TV series that is quite recent depicted Napoleons rise and fall. It's major floor is the battle of waterloo is rather rushed and I guess they simply don't have the numbers in extras to recreate the major battles. Allthough some battles are rather well done especially the one against Russia in Poland its name escapes me. It has a pretty good cast to Gerard Depraudu (Have they ever made a french movie without him in it?) and John Malkovich. Napoleon is played by Christian Clavier http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253839/ . But I guess your probably like me in that you get a kick out of watching Marshal Ney's infamous cavalry charge into square formations of Black Guard Infantry with bayonets fixed. Your right about the patriot that was utter *beep* Its storyline is strangely similar to that of another American Revolution filmed simply titled "Revolution" Starring a very young al pacino and rather hardcore Donald Sutherland as an English Sargeant Major. It's a million times better then the patriot (which happens to be a totally fictional story that never really happened). Alexander was pretty bad. If you like historical films set in the 18th century you should watch the duelists by Ridley Scott and perhaps Stanley kubricks barry Lyndon. I hope and prey that some day someone will make stanley kubricks script for Napoleon and I hope and prey its not Steven Spielperg perhaps someone like David Fincher. Anyhow au revoir....
"History is but a fable we have all agreed upon."
Watch the Sharpe series starring Sean Bean (Boromir from Lord of the Rings). It's tremendous stuff. The budget is significantly lower than this film but it's swashbuckling stuff and the stories/characters are sad. The depiction of Waterloo was both sad and brilliant.
shareActually The Patriot is based on the life of American guerrilla leader Francis Marion (though apparently he was as much a slave-owning Southerner as anyone in South Carolina). Not that I liked it - the movie was (like Braveheart) too bloody slanted, they got the Green Dragoons of TARLETON wrong and the ending was a cop out.
Napoleon started good but I fear that they got it all wrong with Marshal Ney and Waterloo. Ney is depicted (at Jena and Waterloo) as what seems to be a senile old coot rather than the dashing Rougeaud so beloved by his men, The Bravest of the Brave. Waterloo is not significantly explained and the uniforms are for crap generally (with Scottish troops wearing what seems like Pizzeria Tablecloths for kilts) - except for the French. Any film that shows La Gendarmerie d'Elite (Military Police of the Imperial Guard - during the execution of d'Enghien) deserves to be seen at least once. I hate to say it but after Russia the film - like Napoleon - just marches to its 'waterloo'.
But Clavier, despite the bad press about 'Asterix' playing Le Petit Tondu, performs rather well, quite a pleasant surprise as a matter of fact!
Tom516
I never realised that about the uniforms, i love millitary war stuff,but the napoleon era is not one of my favs for soem reason,though im not sure why.
But i love this film dearly,a real fav from my childhood,though i do agree with you about ney.
I also quite enjoyed the patriot,pretty good flick,and though being a brit was a bit pissed about some of it(the church bit),i liked the battles.
Not to many epic war movies get made these days,so i take what i can,and liked most war films,even if i know they are historiclly wrong, i for one will try and enjoy them.
My major beef with shapres waterloo,was the lack of numbers in the battle,obviously hard to do on a small budget,but the book is on my opinion the best of the lot,and felt it was pretty poor over all.
Ive never seen that tv series on waterloo,never even heard of it before,will try and find it,as i have already said will watch any war flick/series.
The series isnt called Waterloo it's just simply titled Napoleon. It follows his rise froma general to emperor. I also have the unmade script to Kubricks Napoleon if you want it. Kubrick was about to shoot when Waterloo was released with bad reviews and done poorly at the box office so all the investers for kubricks Napoleon pulled out and old stanley in his sorrow decide to comfort himself with a book called "clockwork Orange". If you want the script my email is [email protected]
shareI know, my bad I should have put "NAPOLEON" in caps and parenthesis like so. I've seen the Kubrick script actually and it's really interesting to wonder what he would have done if he'd had access to the CGI of today when he wanted to make it.
Tom516
Personally, I'd prefer to see a remake of War and Peace, Austerlitz, or even a Leipzig epic. Waterloo is a pretty good film as it is and can we get any better than Rod Steiger? I can't see Ray Winstone doing the job.
Anything would be better than the pathetic battle scene shown in the American version of WaP. Borodino looked like a tea party rather than the colossal barbaric waste of men and horses that it was. And Austerlitz resembled a fox hunt on stage.
That's one time when Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn just CAN'T no matter how they try.
We actually had a discussion about it before on another board. I've been wanting to write a musical based on Waterloo and we were discussing casting. Someone suggested Danny Di Vito as Napoleon. I personally see Hugh Jackman as Nosey, particularly after his 'Duke of Albany' in Kate and Leopold. And - don't scream - Napoleon singing songs by Eminem (adapted of course to the theme). My rationale is that Napoleon was a 'rebel' a 'menace to society' in the eyes of the European monarchs, someone who went against the social order yet was beloved by the masses (or so it would seem). In modern day music that would make him a 'gangsta'.
Okay, y're all free to let the insults fly
Tom516
Mmmmnnnnaaahhhhhhhaaahhh ummmmmmm you cant fool me. Danny De Vito was on a billboard as Napoleon on get shorty and Eminem is anything but a rebel. Napoleon was never a rebel he was a patriot to france. Nice try though...hehe
shareNot that he was a 'rebel' but he was perceived as such by the 'establishment' - the crowned heads of the 'old order' in Europe.
Tom516
Mmm yeh i guess your right one mans patriot is another mans rebel. But I still don't think eminem is a rebel, he's more of a commercial whore symbol of a rebel. The true rebels are those that stand up against the masses he just stands infront of a camera and pretends to.
shareWell he's a product as much as Tide or Snickers is definitely. I was thinking more of a Moulin Rouge-ish style Waterloo tale, since Chris Plummer was both Wellington and Capt.Von Trapp so there was a bit of banter on the old boards about combining the two and having a Waterloo the Musical.
Tom516
Hehe i once saw a bit of a comedy routine by a unit of infantry. They stood in double column probably about 40 men and the commanding officer stood infront. The CO begun by giving them orders to look left,ready,arm up you know the normal stuff then he said FIX BAYONETS!!!! and all the men fixed their bayonets he then yelled "There she was just a walking down the street" and all the men stepped forward and thrusted their bayonets into the air whilst yelling "doooh wayy didy dum didy day" as if they wanted to kill someone. He then yelled "She looked good!" and They replied "SHE LOOKED GOOD!" and at the end thrust their bayonets out. It was all really well done in formation and would be something cool to see with say 300 to 400 redcoats behind Wellington singing hmmmm I dunno we are the champions or something (Sure you can think of a better tune)
sharehehe! Cadence chanting rocks. Brings back the memories. I was a company commander in ROTC and there was once this girl I wanted to impress. She was taking music lessons at our school and she had a habit of sitting in this gazebo by the corridor. So what I did (a horrible misuse of power I know) was form my company up, march them through the corridor and as we passed her I commanded "Company, Eyes - RIGHT!" and the whole company saluted her. Well she didn't buy it, guess she was anti-war or something hehehe.
Yeah we did lots of crazy things like marching to the tune of Sex Bomb (Tom Jones) or Numa Numa. I heard that California Dreaming was actually originally a cadence march thought up by the songwriter who went to West Point. You can actually march to it, no kidding.
All the leaves are - LEFT LEFT LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT (brownnnn)
And the sky is - LEFT LEFT LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT (grayyy)
Seriously, marching songs were a vital part of the military establishment. I've got a book called 'The Rambling Soldier' and it has all these songs that the redcoats sang. In fact during long marches they'd call out 'singers to the front' and they'd march to the tunes they loved. Don't forget all those French songs either.
Tom516
That's really cool. I love little bits of history like that, I wonder if the good singing got to stand at the back of the collumn when advancing on the enemy so they didnt kill their good singers (doubt it).
Another thing that you could use would be infantry in square formation, they could be like a choir or well just a large vocal section.Maybe a kindof sing off with cavalry as they try and breach the square. Opportunity for more bare Scottish bottoms:P
This concept is going to be rather difficult. Modernised historical musicals are quite rare.I don't think the musical is an easy market, however watching the latest producers I was in tears of laughter I thought it was near the best film I saw at the time.....near
I think moulin rouge works because it is basicly a love story set in a romanticised environment. Thats what a waterloo film lacks, it is a war movie and war movies are male dominated so you miss that female demographic which is vital to alot musicals...chicago comes to mind.
My memory is sketchey but Josephine wasn't in the picture during the waterloo era was she? And Boney never saw the princess of Austria after his first excile. I'm not to sure about Wellington? However every war has an army of females that suffer the casualties more then anyone else, mothers. So there would be some way of finding a way to make it more female.
Well I would think that as the good singers up in front started the tune the rest of the column would join in to rouse their spirits (something quite helpful on a long route march let me tell ya!) Sort of like what they do with the cadences nowadays, you have a chanter leading up front then the rest join in.
Music and warfare's got a long lovely history - there was a great article in Military History a while back and I'll see if I can still find it. From Joshua's trumpets at Jericho through the tribal chants through the Scots pipers through the military bands of the Coldstream or the USMC all the way to the barrack room ditties of the individual soldiers, war has been virtually a broadway musical.
Actually my Waterloo musical will be a lovestory with the war as the background. In my dream cast it'll be Hugh Jackman as Wellington with Chris Plummer playing a cameo as probably Sir Henry Torrens. Ewen McGregor's the star so yeah it's pretty much a Moulin Rouge rip off with men in skirts and Eminem music.
Wellington was supposedly having an affair or something with an officer's wife (Lady Wedderburn-Webster), all hush-hush of course but delightfully scandalous. Of course you have the Duke and Duchess of Richmond's legendary ball. It focuses mainly on the British side with Napoleon kinda being the catalyst for splitting the lovers apart.
Tom516