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Waterloo (1970) – Marshal Ney’s charge. No CGI, just 16,000 extras and 2,000 horses from the Soviet army.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5XfCgDiJcE
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View Reddit by kiwi-66 – View Source
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Waterloo (1970) – Marshal Ney’s charge. No CGI, just 16,000 extras and 2,000 horses from the Soviet army.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5XfCgDiJcE
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View Reddit by kiwi-66 – View Source
> No CGI…
Well, that’s because the first usage of CGI with live action was still [three years away](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070909/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk).
The way the actual battle was shown, British square formation and french cavillary change , it was orgasmic to a history lover like me❤️
Isn’t the mystery that when wargamed the French usually win Waterloo? That’s the great question as to why Napoleon acted the way he did. He had the Prussians on the run.
This is so grand, wow
>To recreate the battlefield “authentically”, the Soviets bulldozed away two hills, laid five miles of roads, transplanted 5,000 trees, sowed fields of rye, barley and wildflowers and reconstructed four historic buildings. To create the mud, more than six miles of underground irrigation piping was specially laid. Most of the battle scenes were filmed using five Panavision cameras simultaneously – from ground level, from 100-foot towers, from a helicopter, and from an overhead railway built right across the location.
EDIT: [The entire movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DcWJrzK0wU) is available on YouTube for anyone interested. Also, the [musis/score](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFXv3Un_LHY&list=PLrBFqZ5s1q_pP3SlKJljyUeuBKMe7tKWj&index=5) was composed by Nino Rota (same guy who did the *Godfather*) and it’s pretty good (amazingly for a movie that flopped).
This really is part of the beauty of film before CGI. It’s so distracting these days because it feels like I’m watching a video game instead of a movie when computer graphics are added.
Incredible piece of cinema on a scale we rarely see, and not a scrap of CGI anywhere.
Lovely to see historical accuracy of the formations, horses won’t charge square formations but squares are nice targets for artillery. Infantry support helps break the squares and gives the cavalry a target. Without support Ney’s troops could do very little but run around the squares getting picked off.
The cinematography is superb especially the aerial shots of the massive amounts of troops on the field.
I love these grand epic Soviet-films. Bondarchuk’s *War and Peace(1965), They Fought Their Country*(1975) and Yuriy Ozerov’s *Liberation*-series.
The way the war is going the same batallions will head to Ukraine soon
Why they removed the ABBA soundtrack, I’ll never know
Edit: https://imgur.com/TgSpgip
I was bored
I’m guessing a lot of people and horses got hurt while filming this. Still incredible though
Those poor horses.
They fell because they were tripped or reached the end of a rope or other similar tricks.
A horse falling with its head down like that isn’t doing it because it’s trained.
“A hard pounding gentlemen!”
“Yes sir ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)”
“~~No~~ animals were harmed during the making of this film”
Absolute masterpiece. Am I sad about the stunt horses being tripped all over the place? Yes. Am I glad they were able to create this movie practically with real life horses and stunt men? Absolutely.
How do the economics work with a film like this? I mean, assuming they grossed several million or so, they still have to pay all those extras (16,000 x ?), right? And provide the uniforms, etc. Not to mention high costs for the major actors’ contracts, and the props, cannons w/multiple explosions, transport and maintenance of the horses, landscaping, etc. Somehow it doesn’t seem feasible.
Imagine the horses thinking they’re actually going to war
I knew it! The undead were all in hollow square formation and that’s why the Dothraki charge failed! It was just too dark to see
Soviet movies were peak cinema. How did they film this chaos?
I’m gonna guess a lot of horses were hurt during the making of this?
That was amazing I never watched it
Just watched this a few weeks ago. Underrated movie in a broad sense, but one of the best napoleonic movies out there. It’s shame it bombed upon release back then. Can’t wait for Ridley Scott’s Napoleon.
It’s kinda sad we will never see a new film with extras on this scale again.
I watched this film 40 years after it was made, 10 years later I was an extra in Vanity Fair living the very same dream I had 10 years previous.
Although thankfully horses get treated way better now so that was nice.
Michel Ney was cool as shit.
He was on trial for treason and his lawyer had actually a pretty novel defense which was working. That Ney was from Sarrelouis which according to the treaty of Paris was part of Prussia, and since the treat was ostensibly setting the borders back to the way they were, it was always Prussian. Which means Ney was Prussian and couldn’t have committed treason against France as not a Frenchman.
Ney essentially ruined his entire defense by disagreeing with his own lawyer stating something along the lines of “I was born French. I shall remain French”. So he was sentenced to execution.
He was given the honour of commanding his own execution. Giving the order himself with this statement “Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I protest against my condemnation. I have fought a hundred battles for France, and not one against her … Soldiers, fire!”
Ney was called “Bravest of the Brave” with good reason. At Waterloo alone he had 5 horses shot from under him.
Ah yes, the beauty of animals being abused
Was this the movie that caused Kubrick to shelve his Napoleon project starring Jack Nicholson??