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fionamccall · 2 years

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My top ten historical films

While on long-term sick leave, I’ve started a project to list all my favourite films, and it seems natural to start with some historical ones. Really good historical films are a rarity - one of the drawbacks of becoming a historian is that you are eternally cringing at historical inaccuracies.

The following, entirely my own selection, are films based on real historical events or people, with varying levels of artistic licence or authenticity, in chronological order by the period in which they are set. It is surprising how many of them are about war. I have not included films with a fictional setting in the past or literary adaptions: these will go in separate lists.

1 Andrey Rublev (1966), Andrei Tarkovsky

An examination of the artistic process, this epic film follows the life of the icon painter Rublev, capturing the world of a medieval Russia suspended between paganism and Christian mysticism. The most memorable scene is a long sequence at the end in which a very young bellmaker dedicates his whole soul and being to creating a great bell, in the knowledge that if he fails he will be executed.

2 Winstanley (1975), Kevin Brownlow

Reflecting his extensive knowledge of early silent film technique, Kevin Brownlow uses black and white film to bring to life the idealism of the Diggers, proto-communists who, following the British Civil Wars, tried to return to their vision of Eden by sharing all things in common on St George’s Hill in Surrey. Led by Gerard Winstanley (an inspiring performance by amateur actor Miles Halliwell) the reality of pitching camp in the pouring rain of the English climate is shown as somewhat more depressing than the ideal, as support from a neighbouring parson’s wife drifts away and the Diggers are soon defeated by General Fairfax and the continuing power of the propertied class. Watch for a great scene filmed under the great plastered vault of the long gallery at Chastleton House in Oxfordshire

3 Witchhammer (1970), Otakar Vávra

The Czechs have made some of the best historical films of all. This film chillingly portrays the course of the North Moravian witch trials of the 1670s under the Catholic Inquisition, showing how the terms of investigation and the climate of fear create the perfect conditions for the witch hunt to escalate until even the clergy fall under suspicion. If you want to understand the dynamics and the universal qualities of witch-hunting, watch this.

4 Napoleon (1927), Abel Gance

I went completely mad about this film as the apotheosis of silent film-making technique, with its close attention to the visual language of communication. Technical brilliance, great performances as both the child and the adult Napoleon, ace snow fight and an underdog story. Quotes marked ‘historical’ – ha! This is Napoleon as the French would like to remember him, young, emotive, whip-smart and whip-thin. The later Napoleon, warmonger, egotist, pudgy womaniser and cultural looter, was a completely different matter. A very long film, but that makes it all the more profound an experience. There is a bizarre parallel love story involving a female Napoleon stalker, I guess because Gance found Josephine somewhat disappointing as a love-object!

5 Waterloo (1970), Sergei Bondarchuk

This was a failure at the time of release, but stands the test of time. See my review after watching it in 2014. Starring the incomparable (and much undervalued) Christopher Plummer as Wellington; Rod Steiger less appropriately cast as Napoleon. I’ve watched Bondarchuk’s War and Peace, which is the best version going (despite cutting out a good chunk of the story) but this is more effective because it is more focused, as the drama of the day of battle itself shapes the action.

6 Topsy Turvy (1999) Mike Leigh

Leigh immerses us in the late-19th century world of the Savoy Opera, demonstrating the genius of Gilbert and Sullivan, but set against the pathos of their own lives and those of the actors they employ. The genius and originality of Gilbert’s setting for the Mikado is counterpoised with the seamier realities of life for Gilbert, Sullivan and the actors they employ, involving impotency, addiction and abortion. It has a magnificent cast, particularly Jim Broadbent as W.S. Gilbert and Leslie Manville as his wife Kitty. Shirley Henderson, as always, takes your breath away as the alcoholic Leonora Braham, when the drama suspends time for her dream-like rendition of ‘The Sun whose Rays’.

7 The Pianist (2002)

An unforgettable performance by Adrian Brody as the Jewish pianist Władysław Szpilman who survived the holocaust and the Warsaw uprising in hiding. At the beginning of the film he is a normal man with ordinary hopes, and we gradually see him dehumanised by Nazi persecution until at the end of the film, living like a rat underground, he is unexpectedly asked once more to play the piano, and his music signifies his humanity that has almost but not quite been destroyed.

8 Schindler’s List (1993), Steven Spielberg

My then-husband refused to go with me to see this - it seemed like a hard watch. I was drenched with emotion by the end, and wept buckets. Spielberg had such a serious purpose behind this, and employed all the artistry he had accumulated over years of more popular film-making to say something important for humanity within a particular framework. We do have choices, for good or ill, and it is important to act as witnesses.

9 Come and See (1985)

The most harrowing film I have ever seen, about the German occupation of Belarus, seen through the eyes of a young boy. An unflinching depiction of German atrocities, seen as a game by the German soldiers who laugh and joke as they burn people alive. Not for the faint-hearted.

10 The Killing Fields (1984)

Its a long time since I’ve seen this but this film about the Khymer Rouge ‘Year Zero’ in Cambodia made a huge impression on me when younger. Some have objected to the use of John Lennon’s Imagine at the end of the film, but seem to misunderstand the point - if Winstanley shows the limits of idealism, when set against the need for day to day survival and the existing power-base, this is about what happens when idealism (such as envisaged in Lennon’s song) is taken too far until it strips us entirely of our humanity.

#historical films

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ratscabies · 2 years

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I'm kind of interested in War and Peace... 👀 Any recommendations where I should start?

hehehehehe we got another one boys

BBC War and Peace (2016) is probably one of the most accessible adaptations in terms of being able to follow the plot, so I'd say that's a very good starting point!

My absolute favorite film adaptation is the 1966-67 War and Peace film(s) directed by Sergei Bondarchuk, but I know some people have a harder time getting into older movies, so it may not be the best starting point.

Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812 musical by Dave Malloy is a very popular War and Peace adaptation, but I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point since it only covers a 70-ish page storyline in a book of 1000+ pages.

For me, personally, I watched BBC War and Peace (2016) and listened to The Great Comet first, and then I went into reading the novel. I felt very prepared for the novel at that point because I had a pretty good grasp on who all of the main players were and so I could better visualize the story in my mind.

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elizabethanism · 3 years

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This piece was originally written for the Asahi Shinbun newspaper, and published in the evening edition, on 13 May, 1977. It was reproduced, with the addition of the photo of Kurosawa and Tarkovsky in Solaris pamphlet. It was also published in Nihonkai Eigasha, June 1978. It was again published in Image Forum No. 80, March special issue, 1987, under a different title: Solaris: A Nostalgy toward Nature on Great Earth. Finally, the article appeared in The Complete Akira Kurosawa, Vol 6, Iwanami Shoten Publishers, Tokyo, 1988, with the original title, Tarkovsky and Solaris. The article was translated for Nostalghia.com by their Japan correspondent Sato Kimitoshi.

"Tarkovsky and Solaris" by Akira Kurosawa

I met Tarkovsky for the first time when I attended my welcome luncheon at the Mosfilm during my first visit to Soviet Russia. He was small, thin, looked a little frail, and at the same time exceptionally intelligent, and unusually shrewd and sensitive. I thought he somehow resembled Toru Takemitsu, but I don’t know why. Then he excused himself saying, “I still have work to do,” and disappeared, and after a while I heard such a big explosion as to make all the glass windows of the dining hall tremble hard. Seeing me taken aback, the boss of the Mosfilm said with a meaningful smile: “You know another world war does not break out. Tarkovsky just launched a rocket. This work with Tarkovsky, however, has proved a Great War for me.” That was the way I knew Tarkovsky was shooting Solaris.

After the luncheon party, I visited his set for Solaris. There it was. I saw a burnt down rocket was there at the corner of the space station set. I am sorry I forgot to ask him as to how he had shot the launching of the rocket on the set. The set of the satellite base was beautifully made at a huge cost, for it was all made up of thick duralumin.

It glittered in its cold metallic silver light, and I found light rays of red, or blue or green delicately winking or waving from electric light bulbs buried in the gagues on the equipment lined up in there. And above on the ceiling of the corridor ran two duralumin rails from which hanged a small wheel of a camera which could move around freely inside the satellite base.

Tarkovsky guided me around the set, explaining to me as cheerfully as a young boy who is given a golden opportunity to show someone his favorite toybox. Bondarchuk, who came with me, asked him about the cost of the set, and left his eyes wide open when Tarkovsky answered it. The cost was so huge: about six hundred million yen as to make Bondarchuk, who directed that grand spectacle of a movie “War and Peace,” agape in wonder.

Now I came to fully realize why the boss of the Mosfilm said it was “a Great War for me.” But it takes a huge talent and effort to spend such a huge cost. Thinking “This is a tremendous task” I closely gazed at his back when he was leading me around the set in enthusiasm.

Concerning Solaris, I find many people complaining that it is too long, but I do not think so. They especially find too lengthy the description of nature in the introductory scenes, but these layers of memory of farewell to this earthly nature submerge themselves deep below the bottom of the story after the main character has been sent in a rocket into the satellite station base in the universe, and they almost torture the soul of the viewer like a kind of irresistible nostalghia toward mother earth nature, which resembles homesickness. Without the presence of beautiful nature sequences on earth as a long introduction, you could not make the audience directly conceive the sense of having-no-way-out harboured by the people “jailed” inside the satellite base.

I saw this film late at night in a preview room in Moscow for the first time, and soon I felt my heart aching in agony with a longing to returning to the earth as quickly as possible. Marvellous progress in science we have been enjoying, but where will it lead humanity after all? Sheer fearful emotion this film succeeds in conjuring up in our soul. Without it, a science fiction movie would be nothing more than a petty fancy.

These thoughts came and went while I was gazing at the screen.

Tarkovsky was together with me then. He was at the corner of the studio. When the film was over, he stood up, looking at me as if he felt timid. I said to him, “Very good. It makes me feel real fear.” Tarkovsky smiled shyly, but happily. And we toasted vodka at the restaurant in the Film Institute. Tarkovsky, who didn’t drink usually, drank a lot of vodka, and went so far as to turn off the speaker from which music had floated into the restaurant, and began to sing the theme of samurai from Seven Samurai at the top of his voice.

As if to rival him, I joined in.

For I was at that moment very happy to find myself living on Earth.

Solaris makes a viewer feel this, and even this single fact shows us that Solaris is no ordinary SF film. It truly somehow provokes pure horror in our soul. And it is under the total grip of the deep insights of Tarkovsky.

There must be many, many things still unknown to humanity in this world: the abyss of the cosmos which a man had to look into, strange visitors in the satellite base, time running in reverse, from death to life, strangely moving sense of levitation, his home which is in the mind of the main character in the satellite station is wet and soaked with water. It seems to me to be sweat and tears that in his heartbreaking agony he sqeezed out of his whole being. And what makes us shudder is the shot of the location of Akasakamitsuke, Tokyo, Japan. By a skillful use of mirrors, he turned flows of head lights and tail lamps of cars, multiplied and amplified, into a vintage image of the future city. Every shot of Solaris bears witness to the almost dazzling talents inherent in Tarkovsky.

Many people grumble that Tarkovsky’s films are difficult, but I don’t think so. His films just show how extraordinarily sensitive Tarkovsky is. He made a film titled Mirror after Solaris. Mirror deals with his cherished memories in his childhood, and many people say again it is disturbingly difficult. Yes, at a glance, it seems to have no rational development in its storytelling. But we have to remember: it is impossible that in our soul our childhood memories should arrange themselves in a static, logical sequence.

A strange train of fragments of early memory images shattered and broken can bring about the poetry in our infancy. Once you are convinced of its truthfulness, you may find Mirror the easiest film to understand. But Tarkovsky remains silent, without saying things like that at all. His very attitude makes me believe that he has wonderful potentials in his future.

There can be no bright future for those who are ready to explain everything about their own film. —Akira Kurosawa.

#Asahi Shinbun #andrei tarkovsky #akira kurosawa #Solaris #Film #Cinema #Kino #men i love #film theory

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spiritcc · 6 years

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War In Piss 1956 Grand Stream

The Soviet Movie Club(tm) is entering a very grand time: Mosfilm, bless their souls, have remastered Bondarchuk’s War and Peace ‘65-67 in full HD, a great masterpiece and a fantastic adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel. Just a basic frame-to-frame comparison with the old version made us lose our fuckin minds, so we thought it’d be great to do a re-run of this truly fantastic show and appreciate the amazing work Mosfilm had done.

BUT BEFORE THAT, I insisted that all of you who want to join us in appreciating bond’s masterpiece, check out THIS AMAZING version first, that was made a good decade earlier, by our beloved Hollyweed, an won an Oscar. The fuckin epic War and Peace 1956.

So none of us and yall fucks will never complain about any movie adaptation ever again.

This monstrosity, of a great adaptation, stars many amazing actors who deliver their best, wooden, performances and truly bring the tragedy, of the story, out on the big screen. A fantastingly horrid catch for all Granada fans as well, as this movie even sucked poor Jeremy Brett into this honour of a movie. Tolstoy’s story gets everything it doesn’t deserve with this film and its take at literally every aspect of the book: you will be just as amazed as all atla fans were when Shyamalan’s adaptation of the Avatar came out. Best quality cardboard backgrounds, amazing costumes from fifty different historic periods, unbelievable chemistry that only a bag compost and a green carpet would have. When this movie ends, you will be dead inside, from realising you’ll never see a movie this good ever again. An absolute must watch that should, and must be, appreciated, to see what a truly great movie does not look like.

It is a Grand Stream since this epic is a whooping three and a half hours long, and nobody besides us idiots could actually sit through all this in one go without completely losing their mind from the brilliance seen on screen. Therefore it will be split over both weekend days, 22-23th September Saturday and Sunday respectively. As the video doesn’t show on rabbit normally, I will have to stream it through their extension, with my internet ensuring that the video quality will vary from 480-144p, which is exactly the visual it deserves.

If you want to celebrate the rebirth of War and Peace fully starting from this amazing event, join us for the first ~1h40mins of the movie on rabbit this Saturday, 22nd of September, at 9pm GMT+1.

#Soviet Movie Club™#FUCK YEAAH MA DUDES #AMAZING MOVIE 10/10 MUST WATCH!!!!!!#TO DIE #honestly like dont even join us on the actual bond shite if you havent seen this first #fcink.......#canny believe i had the NERVE to even slightly dislike literally anything about bond's version #when THAT existed #god im so excited to die yall must see it

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mr-brightside24 · 7 years

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Hello again! I'm that American who messaged you yesterday about St. Petersburg! I've been trying to learn Russian for over 2 years now, and wasn't able to take Russian again at school this semester bc of other graduation requirements. Would you mind giving me any tips on learning it? I know you're native, so it's different. But maybe what did you do to be fluent in English? I have a very hard time with listening/speaking. (1/2)

2/2: Maybe do you know any Russian tv series, movies, bands, etc would you recommend that I try listening to and watching? Or whatever else comes into your mind! Lol I've watched quite a bit of Masha and Medved in class! Thanks!!

heeyy, great to meet you! i’m gonna post your ask here in case someone else would like to add something. gotta tell you - it’s a tough one because i don’t watch/listen much of russian stuff lately. but that’s amazing that you’re learning it, i hope i can be any help.

i’m going to recommend you to listen to Zemfira songs (Земфира) - because she has a great pronunciation, she says words very clearly when she sings. some examples:

Земфира - Главное

Земфира - Мы разбиваемся

Here is the mix

i’m zero at the modern music but the following bands are very popular atm, the lyrics don’t make much sense but the songs are extremely catchy so maybe it’ll help to remember some words (as they will stuck in your head lol):

Время и Стекло - Наверно потому что

Время и Стекло - Имя 505

IOWA - Бьет Бит

Burito - Мама

Мот - Капкан (in case you okay with hip hop)

Ленинград - Экспонат

Alekseev - Снова Осколки

Полина Гагарина - Спектакль Окончен

^ these are examples for you to chose what you like and then you could just go through their channels on youtube

***

russian-language movies that i would recommend were made in ussr. FIRST OF ALL: Sherlock Holmes series. If you like Sherlock Holmes you’ll enjoy it.

here they are with subtitles

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one of my all time fav is War and Peace by Bondarchuk (1967). imo it’s the best adaptation of the books ever. yeah, it’s long and slow, but it is epic and must help you to get closer not only with the language but with the culture in general.

you can watch it here

then... The Irony of Fate (1976), Иван Васильевич меняет профессию (1973), Бриллиантовая рука (1968), Собачье сердце (1988)

I can also recommend to watch Solaris (1972) by Tarkovsky because well, not only it’s a very deep film but it has a slow dynamic - the actors don’t speak too fast in there. so maybe it will help to catch up with the lines. Here it is with english subtitles.

talking about modern russian cinema.. there are two kinds: shitty comedies and great but extremely depressing movies. so there is only one film that comes to my mind, it’s here - Питер FM (2006). hey, it’s about Saint Petersburg btw! you’ll love it

this show is quite good - Кухня (The Kitchen) - but i can’t find it with subtitles, maybe you’ll just practice your listening.

Masha and Medved is cute! haha :D i grew up on a soviet era cartoons and i have a feeling you would find them quite bizzare. but you could give it a try. as i can see that YT channel has lots of stuff with subtitles.

myself i learned english mostly by staying on the internet tbh and reading fanfiction (that’s why i still have problems with the tenses). watching shows/movies is a great help too. oh, maybe you could watch your favorite eng language series with russian voiceover? i remember when i was a student i also had BBC news on in the background constantly, just listening to muffled english speech all the time, getting used to it.

i was extremely shy to speak in english at first but then i’ve been living in europe for a little while, dating a foreign person so it was the only way to communicate. helped to break the fear of talking out loud. in the end you realize you don’t have to worry that your accent/pronunciation sounds weird, you’re not native, people understand it, they’re not gonna mock you

i just wanna add if you’re struggling with speaking or writing or learning russian in general, don’t blame yourself - it is a difficult language. heck, lots of russians are far from being good at it. hope you’ll get to your goals. if you have any more questions - i’ll be here

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superbwombatsublime-blog · 6 years

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