Waterloo, A Great Movie Battle Before CGI,Filmmakers have it really easy today in comparison to back

Waterloo, A Great Movie Battle Before CGI,Filmmakers have it really easy today in comparison to back in the days when movies didn’t have special computer generated special effects.  Back in the day, filmmakers were severely limited in what they could do because there was no way to create a computer generated monster or design an entire battlefield complete with soldiers.  In order to create a scene, a director literally had to shoot the scene live complete with props, costumes, actors, and extras.The 1970 film Waterloo, directed by Sergei Bondarchuck was an incredible film made in such as way. Today CGI technology has come a long way, I’m sure we all remember battle scenes from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy where due to the imperfection of CGI, here and there you see a soldier at the edges of a formation continuously swinging his sword at thin air.  The technology has improved greatly, but still, you can tell its fake. It looks a bit cartoonish, the characters seem a bit mechanical and lifeless, it just doesn’t look real.  The magic of Waterloo was that it features a huge battle, but unlike modern films, it was completely reenacted using real extras with real special effects.  The result is one of the most amazing feats of cinematic wonder in history.Waterloo was originally conceptualized by the Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, however he originally had difficulty finding a director for the film and financial backers because it was such an enormous undertaking. Fortunately for De Laurentiis, he met the Soviet filmmaker Sergei Bondarchuck, who apparently had some very important connections.  What kind of connections did he have? Ones that were influential enough to convince the Soviet government to lend an entire division of the Soviet Army as extras.  To reenact the battle, 17,000 Soviet soldiers were donated for the film, 15,000 as infantry and 2,000 as cavalry. It was the largest battle reenactment ever filmed in movie history, with Gettysburg coming in second with 13,000 reenactors.For two months before filming began, the Soviet soldiers lived in a camp on the “battlefield” where they conducted basic training in order to become Napoleonic French, British, or Prussian soldiers. The men learned how to march like Napoleonic soldiers, learned battle formations and tactics, and learned how to fire flintlock muskets.  During this time the soldiers also grew proper Napoleonic era facial hair.  In addition to the use of the extras, Bondarchuk recreated the Waterloo battlefield in detail at the filming site at Uzhorod, Ukraine.  To do this, three hills were completely removed, 5,000 trees were transplanted, five miles of road were laid, four historic buildings were recreated, six miles of underground piping was laid to create mud at various places, and fields of wheat, rye, barley, and wildflowers were sown.  To film the battle five 100 foot tall towers were construction, which were used in conjunction with helicopters.Filming lasted 28 weeks and cost a sum of $38 million dollars, it was expected that the cost would have been three time higher if filmed outside of the Soviet Union. When adjusted for inflation, $38 million in 1970 money is worth around $263 million today. Indeed it was a very high budget film.  The result is an incredible movie with incredibly real looking scenes.  The soldiers act and move like real people because they are real people, the air is thickened with real gunsmoke from the hundreds of cannon and thousands of muskets being discharged. The smokey and hazy battles of black powder warfare is really not something that is often portrayed in today’s movies, and it give the movie a very dark and gritty feel. It is truly a cinematic masterpiece that dazzles the eyes and amazes the senses.  Perhaps one of the most incredible scenes was a recreation of Marshal Ney’s cavalry charge, involving 2,000 cavalry extras and thousands British soldier extras who form square formations.  The resulting scene is like no other movie battle scene.As for historical accuracy, Waterloo stays faithful to the actual events of the battle pretty well.  There are some small inaccuracies, but they are fairly minor and do not detract from the movie. The Dutch and other German allies are conspicuously absent despite accounting for half of the allied forces on the battlefield, but unfortunately Waterloo has always been depicted as a British battle.  One thing is for sure, they don’t make them like they used to, and they probably never will again.  Peashooter recommends. -- source link

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