Cromwell [Region 2]

Cromwell was an ambitious undertaking for Director Ken Hughes and his two stars Richard Harris and Alec Guinness. He managed to capture the spirit of that part of the 17th century even if he didn't get all his facts right.Like the many tellings of the story of Mary Tudor and Mary Stuart which have them in climatic meeting, we have Oliver Cromwell and Mary Stuart's grandson, Charles I meeting not once, but several times. They too never met, but the story demands it.In point of fact Oliver Cromwell was a minor figure in the war between the Crown and Parliament until the Parliamentary Army lost a series of battles and looked like they were going down for the count. It was at that point that Cromwell emerged as a military leader. It turned out that this previously obscure member of Parliament who had no previous military training had a natural genius for warmaking. He turned that army around and eventually Parliament won.Cromwell could have been George Washington at this point and retired to the farm, but he used his prestige and not as reluctantly as this film shows to make himself the military dictator of Great Britain with the title of Lord Protector.The experience of Cromwell's reign scarred the English body politic for generations and to a large degree the American one as well. The whole struggle over which interpretation of Christianity would hold sway was something all of the ancestors of the American founding fathers had to deal with. That's when the idea came to them to have no established religion in America. Cromwell's large standing Ironsides Army enforcing his dictatorship led to a positive mania about no standing armies, no quartering of troops and even the right to bear arms. All this because of a collective memory of the Lord Protector.Richard Harris is a lean and mean Cromwell who keeps saying he just wants to go back to the farm, but somehow winds up grabbing for more power. Alec Guinness is the perfect conception of that luckless monarch Charles I. Please note the relationship between Guinness and Queen Henrietta Marie played by Dorothy Tutin. Two things should be remembered there. First Henrietta Marie is the sister of Louis XIV of France, a monarch with considerable more power than Charles has. Note how Tutin is constantly berating Guinness for not standing up to the Parliament. He does and see where it gets him. Secondly Charles I is one of the very few English monarchs with no royal paramours. He and the Queen were actually in love and he knew her advice was from the heart if it proved disastrous.Please note a couple of other good performances, Timothy Dalton as Prince Ruppert of the Rhine, Charles's nephew from Germany who actually was a whole lot smarter than he's shown here. And Robert Morley as the Earl of Manchester, one of Cromwell's rivals in the Parliamentary camp.Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 quite suddenly and within two years the Stuart Monarchy was restored under Charles II, oldest son of Charles I and Henrietta Marie. The collapse of the Protectorate is a subject that English historians have some raging debates over. It was very much like the collapse of the Soviet Union in our time. The collapse of the Protectorate and the Restoration of the Stuarts was filmed in Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s The Exile and really needs an up to date treatment.Cromwell as a film is magnificently photographed and directed and actually won an Oscar for costume design. But the flaws in the story line are too many and don't use this film as Cliff's notes kids.

Good acting all around with Richard Harris (Prof. Dumbeldor) and Alec Guinness (Owiban Kenobi) as Cromwell and King Charles. It takes some liberties with history, as all movies do, but over all it's good telling. I am a student of early American history and the English civil war (1640's) was a crucial event that pushed many English people towards becoming settlers to the colonies. Many of my ancestors came at that time, some to New England and some to present day Virginia.

Cromwell has King Charles's head chopped off because Charles dissolved Parliament and ruled England without. Cromwell's first act on coming into power is to dissolve Parliament and rule England without. I have often wondered how often during his half-decade as Lord Protector Ollie lay awake in bed thinking along these lines: "You know, old Charlie was right about that bunch, after all."I first saw this film (it takes itself a little too seriously for me to call it a "movie") in London, where I was visiting at the time of its 1970 premiere. It was heralded as so totally historically accurate that one scene had to be re-shot because one of Cromwell's famous warts fell off the first time. The souvenir booklet featured a specially-written article by a respected historian on the battles. I fear that all this ultimately did it less than no service. In 1970, I was utterly steeped in that period of English history, and almost fell out of my seat laughing at the inaccuracies. It should have been heralded as "based on, rather loosely," rather than "depicting with absolute historical fidelity."For starters, what is the Earl of Manchester doing sitting in the House of Commons? What is Cromwell's name doing on that infamous list of five members whom the king comes in person to arrest? Worry about accuracy with Cromwell's warts and not about accuracy as to his never actually having been on that list?Now that both the film and myself are nearly half a century older, and my interest in the Martyr King and his world reawakened, I watch "Cromwell" again with appreciation for what it is, rather than what it was falsely advertised to be. Yes, Mancester belongs in the House of Lords: but putting him there prominently visible in the House of Commons scenes helped pad out a rich part for Robert Morley as the kind of corrupt and cowardly bully we love to hate. No, Cromwell's name was not one of the five: but pretending it was allowed the filmmakers to point up the conflicts of their drama with a little added tense dialog that makes for a rather powerful scene. And while they give Cromwell a famous short pre-battle prayer that was in fact prayed by a Royalist, at least it is authentic to the English Civil War. In short, provided you no more expect a history lesson than you can get from one of Shakespeare's "historical" plays, you may find this worth watching. And where it does look researched, as with the scenes of the king's execution, it looks both convincing and visually luxurious.I have long been a fan of England's Charles I, who tried so hard to be at once a good man and a good king, failing rather notoriously in the "king" part, but quite possibly succeeding pretty well in the "man" part. As both man and king, he appears never to have forgiven himself for signing Strafford's death warrant -- the filmmakers may have suggested this, but so lightly I'm not sure I would have guessed it had I not read the EIKON BASILIKA and various biographical studies. And as king, Charles certainly appears to play falsely. But I could not see that Cromwell as depicted here really does much better in that department, seeming as he does to shape his strict sense of personal and public honor very much to his own interpretations and impressions of the immediate moment -- though no doubt he considers this as struggling with his conscience and his God.The film I think makes Cromwell a bit too prominent throughout the whole Civil War period from the Parliament of 1640 on. And I couldn't helpt but be amused when he brings back a new Puritan army whom he must have spent as much time training to sing as to fight, their marching-to-battle chorale sounding -- at least to my poor and unreliable ears -- so much better than that of the earlier sorry ragtag of Parliamentary forces. I'm not sure whether their singing was a practical necessity to make them better soldiers, or a dramatic device to let the audience know at once that this time they were going to win.But Charles I, especially as portrayed to absolute perfection by the great Alec Guinness, slight stammer and all, is such an engaging figure, that for dramatic balance they almost had to focus strongly on Cromwell from the outset. And since our own world has been shaped much more by Cromwell's ideas of government than by those of Charles, it was only natural to make him the eponymous "hero." Although watching it again (twice so far), I cannot feel that it in any way shows a struggle between "good guys" and "bad guys," but rather between two sides struggling equally to meet its notion that "God fights for US."For myself, I regard this DVD as a keeper, if only for Sir Alec Guinness as King Charles.

Excellent must-see film on the events of the interregnum - the time of the English Republic, when Oliver Cromwell ruled. The foundations of our western freedoms and systems of government are clearly set forth in this movie. Here we see imperfect but God-fearing Englishmen rise up in the name of Christ to shake off the shackles of greedy, self-righteous tyrants in order to secure the rights of every man.

Schon seit längerer Zeit habe ich nach diesem Film geschaut und jetzt gefunden.Über Inhalt und Leistung der Darsteller findet man bereits genügend Informationen in anderen Beiträgen.Die DVD wurde eingeschweißt geliefert.Für eine DVD ist die Bildqualität gut bis sehr gut, auf einem 55 Zoll TV kann man den Film gut anschauen.Gleichwohl ist es schade dass es den Film nicht in HD auf Blu Ray in deutscher Sprache gibt.

This movie had a really nice Renaissance period flavor to it. The costumes were fabulous and the story was exciting and easy to follow. From what I understand the story is not totally historically accurate in a few details, but it is accurate in the overall events that it portrays. Of course, it is a movie and it's primary goal is to probably entertain which it does in spades. The battle scenes were great and one really gets a nice idea of the political climate of those times as the outrage of parliament over the kings cruelties, arrogance, and follies are well portrayed.

Le film raconte vingt ans de l'histoire de l'Angleterre à travers l'ascension d'Oliver Cromwell. Ici, point de fausse objectivité: le film est outrageusement favorable à Cromwell, présenté comme un des fondateurs de la démocratie moderne, ce qui l'aurait sans doute bien étonné. A tout prendre, mieux vaut un film engagé qu'un film qui n'annoncerait pas la couleur.Sauf qu'Alec Guiness, dans le rôle de Charles Ier, le "méchant" du film (mais en fait présenté avec un effort louable d'objectivité, de telle sorte qu'on comprend bien qu'aux yeux de la majorité de son peuple, il racheta par une mort exemplaire, véritable spectacle baroque mis en scène par le condamné lui-même, une vie de duplicité et décisions malencontreuses) est si impressionnant qu'il finit par en éclipser le personnage de Cromwell, pourtant fort bien interprété lui aussi par Harris.Disons d'emblée que la vie de Cromwell était un sujet en or: c'est un des personnages les plus énigmatiques de l'Histoire, son propre entourage étant divisés entre ceux qui le tenaient pour parfaitement sincère et ceux qui le tenaient pour parfaitement hypocrite, un grand stratège qui révolutionna l'art de la guerre et le fondateur de la puissance maritime britannique. Le spectateur ne risque donc pas de s'ennuyer une seconde avec une pareille histoire, plus grande que la fiction. D'autant plus que, comme je l'ai déjà dit, son adversaire ne manquait pas de panache non plus. Ajoutons qu'un des avantages d'un pareil sujet, c'est que Cromwell était si ambigu que personne ne peut reprocher au film de ne pas avoir montré le "vrai" Cromwell: sans doute plus tolérant que ses partisans, mais quand même responsable du massacre de Drogheda; républicain, mais qui faillit coiffer la couronne; sans formation militaire, mais excellent général, etc.Ce n'était pas tout d'avoir un sujet en or, encore fallait-il que le traitement fût à la hauteur. Là encore, on en a pour son argent: tous les acteurs sont très bons; il ne manque pas une cuirasse, pas un mousquet et pas un éperon; les scènes de bataille sont crédibles; le scénario est habile, sacrifiant l'épisode de la deuxième guerre civile pour ne pas diminuer l'intérêt du spectateur.On est captivé par un film qui, en plus, donne à réfléchir, le seul regret étant que l'aspect religieux (lutte entre les anglicans, les presbytériens et les protestants indépendants), qui joua pourtant un rôle capital dans les deux révolutions d'Angleterre, est réduit à la portion congrue au profit de l'aspect politique, encore que le film montre bien que Charles Ier inclinait vers un anglicanisme liturgique ("High Church") qui prêtait le flanc à l'accusation rédhibitoire de "papisme". Précisons encore que le film est centré sur la montée au pouvoir de Cromwell, et que les années où il fut enfin Lord Protecteur, et donc roi sans le titre, ne sont racontées qu'en une séquence finale.Je recommande enfin de regarder la version originale sous-titrée: c'est de l'anglais parfait, tel que l'on n'en entend plus: l'anglais est loin d'être ma langue étrangère préférée, mais à ce degré de soin dans l'écriture de dialogue et de qualité dans la diction des acteurs, je rends les armes.

歴史を感知するのに、視覚でとらえられるのは理解の一助となりますよ。とにかく、感じて、考えることが大切。その契機を提供しています。興味と関心があれば、さらに追求は深くなりますし、自らの解釈にも説得力が増していくというものでしょう。民主主義、神の前の平等、王権などについて思索できました。また衣装デザイン、俳優さんのメイク、セリフ、演技も素晴らしく、映画としても楽しめました。この後の史実が示すように、振りすぎた振り子の揺り返しがあり、人々の営みはつづきますが、イングランド、英国、アメリカ、キリスト教、今日の世界を違った視点で知ることになります。

Great Historical Film, wonderfully made with great British Actors.