Borgarkeri
A bit overrated, but still an amazing film
Bea Swanson
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
JohnHowardReid
Winner of the 1959 David (Italy's equivalent of the Oscar) Award for Best Film (shared with Generale della Rovere). Winner of the 1959 Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for Best Film (also shared with Generale della Rovere). Alberto Sordi was voted Best Actor of 1959 for his performance in The Great War by the Syndicate of Italian Film Journalists. The Syndicate also voted Garbuglia's art direction as the best of the year. Nominated for the 1959 Award for Best Foreign Film, The Great War lost to Black Orpheus. COMMENT: For the most thrilling and effective use of genuine CinemaScope, it's hard to go past Mario Monicelli's La Grande Guerra. In this exceptionally lavish recreation of WWI Italian battlefields, Monicelli never allows a single square foot of waste space to appear on his screen. Instead his images are constantly crowded — almost always with men: ragged men, jostling men, cheering men, fighting men, slaughtered men, training men, retreating men, advancing men, hungry men, weary men, stupid men, brave men, victimized men, dead men. Vast columns of marching men are stretched across the screen, thousands often forming just a distant background to the forefront knockabout. Monicelli's idea was obviously to fill his screen to bursting with overflowing action. Somehow he has managed to persuade the producer to open his purse and spend more money on soldiery than Selznick did on Gone With The Wind. Just as the overwhelming hideousness of it all is beginning to lose its power, Monicelli skilfully pulls off a last-minute twist that drives home the film's firmly pacifist message with uncommon force. I'm not a fan of Vittorio Gassman, especially not Gassman in boisterous mode as here — well cast though he may be. But Sordi is ever appealing. Miss Mangano is saddled with a conventional and unlikely characterization which she plays with spirit if not conviction. Folco Lulli effectively repeats his Wages of Fear vignette. Blier's performance seems tired, but the Italian dubbing of his dialogue makes it difficult to judge. The other players are unknown to me, but all these minor roles were credibly cast, with Elsa Vazzoler especially compelling as Bordin's wife and Gerard Herter suitably menacing as the Austrian captain. It's true that the 140-minutes version does seem just slightly too long towards the two-hour mark, though, as said, interest is cleverly lifted soon after. The problem is, what scenes to cut? Those that could easily be removed with little loss of continuity are often the most effective and affecting. Personally, I'd take out Gassman's first long scene with Silvano Mangano — but no exhibitor in his right mind is going to do that!
mantus
La Grande guerra is one of the underseen, undervalued hordes of sublime European films that never see the light of day.In the 1960s in the centre of London there was the Academy, Oxford Street, Curzon, Mayfair and one of two other cinemas where the delights of the European cinema were on view. I have lived in Oslo since 1990. It is a cinema friendly city, but overloaded with Hollywood rubbish like most Bruce Willis actioners, or Nicolas Cage going for the money and not to expand his substantial talents as he has done in the past.This is not intellectual snobbery, just a cry from the heart about the lack of quality that is so endemic in current films."Crouching Tiger, Flaming Dragon" - I forget the real title is an example of American audiences accepting the quality of non-US movies."Die Hard"-type movies are good only to perhaps release aggression. It shows the typical obsessive need for America to breed only heroes. The villains with the fantastic exception of John Malkovich are usually superb English actors with foreign accents. Alan Rickman in "Die Hard" and Jeremy Irons in one of the mindless sequels.U571, now the most popular film in video shops where I live is such a devasting con-trick. A real piece of history when a British submarine acquired the Enigma decoding machine which made a significant difference for the Allies to get advance information about German war plans. The heroes are American. Sickening. Dramatic licence is one thing, but fraud is another. The event occurred six months before the US even entered the war. These are well-known complaints.Reminds one of the crassness of putting of Warner Bros. promoting "Objective Burma" in the autumn after the end of the war. Depiction of Errol Flynn (unfit for war service) winning against the Japanese military with not one British soldier in sight.Reminds me of the stories of a close friend and veteran of World War II. The US Army using earthmoving machinery to dig trenches when the British had shovels, the often sidelining of American troops due to the prevalence of veneral disease. The stories of British and other troops relieving American positions with a quarter of the manpower.In movies, with the exception of garishly-suited black pimps in stretch limos, the villains in movies and TV series used BMWs, and other European cars, which also were often beset with engine problems. Unlike the perfection of GM, Ford models etc._Don't get me wrong. With the exception of a mad Bellevue, New York psychiatrist I had once Americans are certainly charming, friendly people.La Grande Guerra is one of the thousands of films that ought to be revived every 10 years like a classic Disney feature.
newbear
I saw this in Czechoslovakia way back in 1960's and still remember it. I am glad it lists here as a "comedy", it sure is one. That is why it will not be available to us on video of any format in any language under any circumstances. It subverts the "enetertainment' concept. An alternative ? Try Roberto Begnigni, the schlemiel nouveau.
faldi
I think this is one of the italian masterpieces of all times, disguised as a "comedy", just because the main characters are the best italian comedians of all times, Sordi and Gasmann. I would call it the "Divina Commedia" of comedy and of deep feelings against war but for the defense of one's country.
