Re: Pearls Before Swine: Uncle Is Not Good With Money

On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 16:07:55 -0500, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

On 1/17/2025 1:56 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:

On Thu, 16 Jan 2025 12:46:59 -0500, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>
<snippo, topic is the recent /Napoleon/ movie and its historicity>
>

Not his whole life, but I heartily recommend the 1970 "Waterloo"
starting Christopher Plummer, Rod Steiger and Orson Wells.
>
I've seen analysis by historians to the effect that this is the
most historically accurate version of the battle ever filmed.

>
Being by Bondarchuck, I would think so.=20
>

The battle was filmed in Ukraine. The Soviet Army lent the
production 17,000 soldiers, who were trained to drill and
'fight' in period style and uniforms. This was before CGI and
Maya, and if you see a soldier, he's real. This led to a
minor degree of randomness that underscores the reality of the
scene, details such random glints of sunlight off the bayonets
of a formation half a mile away.
>
This was by far the largest number of extras ever used in one
movie, and was said to be the 'seventh largest army in Europe'.

>
Actually, <https://movieweb.com/movies-highest-number-extras/> has it
at 9th largest. The largest number is 300,000 for /Gandhi/.

 
_Waterloo_ may well have had the largest number of
extras _at the time it was made_ (1970).   Ghandi was a
decade later.

>
Not according to the article Paul linked. It lists several
movies that both pre-date it, and had more extras.
>
Regardless, the movie is very good.

Yes, number of extras ("costumed" or not) is not a normal criterion of
movie greatness. Indeed, I would think it was irrelevant to movie
quality.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"