Stalin

This is one of the rare biopics that offer less opinions and more facts. Over three hours long, the movie covers the dictator's life from his exile in Siberia when he took the name Stalin up to his death in 1953. It does not try to feature the then world politics and even contemporary Russia as a whole, nor it wastes further screen time on the social reaction to Stalin's policies too much. It features Stalin and only Stalin. It focuses exclusively on his personal life (naturally, since the movie is narrated by his daughter Svetlana) and his take on the fellow comrades of the party. And the filmmakers remain more-or-less true to the facts, giving neither imaginative shock moments nor just plain history.

Robert DuVall looks nice as Stalin,and his performance is also satisfactory. But I don't know why he used that Vito Corleone accent on him. Did Stalin use to talk that way? I don't know. Julia Ormond does a really magnificent job as his second wife Nadya. Her timid yet free-spirited attitude is nicely portrayed by Ormond. And I also must mention Joanna Roth as Svetlana and Roshan Seth as Beria for a really good job. All the actors lift this movie up to a really higher level. Along with the flawless screenplay, acting is another asset of the film.

I'm not a great fan of biography films, but Stalin is an exception. This film was fantastic when I first watched it in History class. This film basically showcases the important aspects of the life the Russian leader Joseph Stalin. From his early political career to the rise of the Soviet Union and eventually the Moscow Show Trials, the Great Purges and the last stages of his life, told through the eyes of his daughter. Stalin features a powerful and riveting performance by Robert Duvall, as well as similarly great performances from the supporting actors including Maximillian Schell and Julia Ormond. The music by Stanislas Syrewicz is epic and suits the film very well. The screenplay is very gripping and well-written. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is wonderful as well as the atmosphere. Also look out for Kevin McNally in an small role before he played Gibbs in Pirates of the Caribbean. Overall, Stalin is must-watch film for those interested in biographies, historical figures and well, good movies.

It's certainly not a brief, inaccurate retelling, but it's neither a history captured. Hollywood with the help of Czechoslovakian immigrate Ivan Passer and famous movie stars offers quite a simplified vision of a terrible man Stalin and his crimes. The history of Russian revolution and USSR from 1917 till 1953 appears as a screen version of quite honest but so much oversimplified cartoon-like cliches and sketches. For every Russian spectator all the characters (beginning with Stalin) are unbelievable in every way from make-up to behavior. Seems like all of them escaped from an amateurish waxwork museum. Even the magnificent Russian actors Feklistov, Tabakov and Larionov had skillfully degraded and performed very brief roles which is a great shame considering their high level. Quite a Hollywood is an American attempt to warmer a Monster type with a lyrical story line of Stalin's relationship with his daughter Svetlana who is telling the story.

I re-watched this film in order to put faces to the names, as I was studying for a Soviet History midterm. In terms of the film's accuracy, it is largly excellent (from what I have read). However, the tendency of the film to separate the good guys (e.g., Bucharin) from the bad (es.g., Stalin, Beria, Ezhov) is not great historiography, but makes the film easier to digest.

It is hard to know what effect the death of Stalin's wife had on him. Clearly the film needed an overarching plot structure to attempt an explanation of a complex man. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get inside Stalin's head. Duvall's performance is masterful, I think, because he manages to capture the LACK of essence of Stalin. If anything, the man was driven by hatred and little else--a hatred that is difficult to articulate, but which was at least admirably displayed in the film.

Probably one of the TV movies I had never heard about until I watched it 3 years ago in history class. This movie details the life of Joseph Stalin, the notorious Communist leader, brought to life by a stunning Robert Duvall who brings out his greatest performance ever.

Narrated by Stalin's daughter Svetlana, this begins with Stalin joining Lenin and the Bolsheviks in their fight against the government, eventually setting up their own government themselves. Most of his biography is well known to us, however this movie brings out the character of Stalin as a psycho villain who did not trust a single person, not even his associates and took extreme measures to exterminate them all. His ego and paranoia alienated him from his friends and his family, even to the point where his wife (Julia Ormond) commits suicide and young Svetlana hating him. But in the end, he does not change and this leads to his downfall and death.

Although the film does suffer in pacing, it is the performance of Robert Duvall that makes it worth watching. In my opinion, Duvall is simply the best actor out of the Godfather series, better than Brando, Pacino, De Niro or Caan. His performances are real and endearing as he simply becomes Stalin by portraying the ruthlessness and paranoia of the mad Communist dictator; a man who could not be solved by his friends or family, and who could not be controlled by anyone even himself. The supporting cast headed by Julia Ormond as Stalin's wife, Maximillian Schell as Lenin and Roshan Seth as Berin do well, but it is Duvall's show all the way. This TV movie is what is not shown in history textbooks. It is engaging and real, but not a masterpiece. History buffs will enjoy watching this, trying to put the pieces together about the madman known as Joseph Stalin.

8 out of 10.