Winston T. Boogie
Senior HTF Member
I'm looking for any information people have about the existence of this film on DVD, what the current options are and how they look and sound, and if anybody knows if there is a studio planning to release this picture in a special edition with a solid transfer and interesting extras. I don't know who currently owns the film rights and I don't know if the fact that it was an Italian-Russian production would complicate that. Perhaps this is a good Criterion project?
Waterloo from 1970 starred Rod Steiger, Chris Plummer, and Orson Welles among others and was a 25 million dollar war epic directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. This of course was quite a budget for its day. It failed at the box office but over the years many people have seen it and raved about the film. I guess you could consider it a rather big budget cult film.
It also is rumored to have once existed in a 3 to 4 hour version that people claim was quite amazing but it is believed this version no longer exists and was only the director's rough cut of the film. Rumors are always fun though, right? As it stands right now it is about a 130 minute film give or take a few minutes here or there depending upon where you are in the world.
Waterloo also has a rather interesting place in film history as it is the main reason Stanley Kubrick never got to make his Napoleon epic. Kubrick was all set to begin filming Napoleon when Waterloo was released and bombed. This frightened the financial backers of Kubrick's film and they pulled out at the last minute scrapping the shoot. With no money behind the film Kubrick had to shift gears and instead went on to make A Clockwork Orange. In all honesty at that period in time studios were discovering that big budget period epics were no longer drawing large crowds and with Waterloo coming late in that cycle this contributed to the films failure and the fate of Kubrick's film. Stanley was ready to shoot though and Waterloo was the straw that broke that camel's back. Even Stanley was a bit surprised at the failure of Waterloo, as the rumor goes, he felt Bondarchuk had made a good film.
I think if seen today Waterloo would be much more appreciated, well, at least by the audience that loves these old school epics with a cast (literally in this case) of thousands, shot on such a grand scale.
So is there anybody here with an interest in this film or that owns it on DVD and can comment on the quality of the DVD they have?
Oh and hey if you are into Westerns please stop by my thread here:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...6-western.html
and post some comments...thanks!
Waterloo from 1970 starred Rod Steiger, Chris Plummer, and Orson Welles among others and was a 25 million dollar war epic directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. This of course was quite a budget for its day. It failed at the box office but over the years many people have seen it and raved about the film. I guess you could consider it a rather big budget cult film.
It also is rumored to have once existed in a 3 to 4 hour version that people claim was quite amazing but it is believed this version no longer exists and was only the director's rough cut of the film. Rumors are always fun though, right? As it stands right now it is about a 130 minute film give or take a few minutes here or there depending upon where you are in the world.
Waterloo also has a rather interesting place in film history as it is the main reason Stanley Kubrick never got to make his Napoleon epic. Kubrick was all set to begin filming Napoleon when Waterloo was released and bombed. This frightened the financial backers of Kubrick's film and they pulled out at the last minute scrapping the shoot. With no money behind the film Kubrick had to shift gears and instead went on to make A Clockwork Orange. In all honesty at that period in time studios were discovering that big budget period epics were no longer drawing large crowds and with Waterloo coming late in that cycle this contributed to the films failure and the fate of Kubrick's film. Stanley was ready to shoot though and Waterloo was the straw that broke that camel's back. Even Stanley was a bit surprised at the failure of Waterloo, as the rumor goes, he felt Bondarchuk had made a good film.
I think if seen today Waterloo would be much more appreciated, well, at least by the audience that loves these old school epics with a cast (literally in this case) of thousands, shot on such a grand scale.
So is there anybody here with an interest in this film or that owns it on DVD and can comment on the quality of the DVD they have?
Oh and hey if you are into Westerns please stop by my thread here:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...6-western.html
and post some comments...thanks!