Kirpianuscus a delicate subject. because it propose a character who remains obscure. and that is the motif for know few basic things about Stalin before see the film. because Robert Duvall does a great job. each detail. each scene. the dialog. and the moments who defines a world, step by step, convincing, touching, precise. a film who reminds more than presents. because it gives a nuanced portrait of a dictator, not in black and white, but in its essential points. to discover Stalin is served with admirable art by the script and director. Stalin by Duvall is not a statue or a stamp. he is the evil but the humanity has few scenes for discover the roots of crimes. and that is the great virtue of the film. to propose a sketch who represents start for understand a period.

meritcoba "This Stalin was not a very nice dude." Henry remarked. He was having a bud, because he always had Budweiser in his fridge, which was a huge red contraption from the firm Northstar that was a remake of those older refrigerators from the fifties. Kristl might have also had a bud, but then she felt that the west was already over Americanized, so instead she drunk triple X. "Why on earth would you drink an Australian beer as a German?" Henry had remarked, when Kristl ordered the six pack via the internet. "Austrian." Kristl corrected. "Eh.. Triple X is Australian. Oh wait. Sorry. You meant you are Austrian." he grinned, "Don't they have Ger.. eh. Austrian beers?" "Yes, but I like Triple X." Kristl had said."No, he wasn't even though the movie is more focused on his private life than I would have expected. It seems to sort of make him look more favorable than I imagine him to be, but even then he remains a scary individual. The way he can be very jolly with you and then suddenly have you ordered to death. Like that moment when one of his old friends is about to be arrested by secret police and Stalin 'happens' to call at that very moment and orders them to leave.The sadist laughs at it. It just pictures him as madman." "Yeah. I think everyone he knew ended up dead eventually. And when he tosses his burning cigar down his wives shirt: what a nasty thing to do. " "There a lot of things that they had to skip it seems. Like there is a part missing at the beginning of World War II where the Sovjet-Union invade Finland, had a kind of shadow war with the Japanese and signed a pact with Hitler that gave him control over the Baltic nations and the eastern part of Poland. Also skipped is the part where a thousands of polish officers were massacred on his order. The list could be extended. Like the way the west tried to dispose of the communist regime at the end of the first world war. Like in the twenties there was a kind of alliance with Germany. Or the Ukrainian uprising at the end of the Second World War. All things that must have influenced this man and his decisions. " "Yeah." "The pity with this movie is that you somehow does not get to grips with the person of Stalin.. Even though Stalin is the subject of the movie, it feels like you are watching him from the outside, but never get in his inside.Never find his motivation or his side of the story. In that I find the move somewhat sterile. You never get to know what moved this man and what possessed him. Why he did those things?" "I think that might be because of the makeup. It looks like Duvalls is wearing a mask. His facial expression is almost non-existent." "I like Robert Duvall, he is a good actor, but they hamstrung him with that mask and thus the movie suffers. You are watching a statue.Still even then Duvall is marvelous because he tries to invoke emotions with that part of his face that is not cloaked with wax." "Yeah, I am left with the feeling that Stalin was a homicidal nut-case surrounded by nut-cases, most of whom were as Homicidal as he was.." Henry said. "And it leaves me with questions. Like how can a nut-case rule a big country like that for decades on end. It seems to beyond belief. Too simple an explanation to assume he is just a nut-case." "Also the movie suffers a bit because his wife kills herself halfway. Basically the story is told by following her and then she dies and that leaves the story suddenly without a focus and it never gets a focus again even though the story is told by his daughter.." Kristl nodded. "So leaves you a bit unfulfilled?" "Yes." "That is why we have beer." Henry grinned and he opened another bud. "Oh, to get fulfilled?" Kristl said. "Yes and to forget we are not." Henry burped. "And forget about him." "That too."

gring0 Initial thoughts- the film is long; inordinately so. I feel this is due to the need to add romance and simple human passion in a film about a man who most agreed was quite sexless. It takes an hour to get to 1928, but the whole of the Second World War takes a mere 15 minutes!!! Not enough opportunity for romance and love during a war that saw possibly 27 million Soviets die, one supposes. I admit my hero Churchill is not the prettiest person to dance with at a Russian knees-up. Duvall seems to be conjuring up a Brandoesque Corleone with huge moustache to add to the epic feel, but here I have a quibble. Whilst I don't have a real problem with his performance (he does seem to have the man down), many have noted his accent. EVERYONE speaks with affected Russian accents. Even though it is set in, ummm, Russia. This is rather off-putting as a result and prevents us from further identifying with the individuals. Now, I can understand Stalin having an accent; as a Georgian, his Russian was thick, guttural and hesitant. To others who embodied the outsider. But why on earth does everyone put on mock-Russian accents? I was rather put off by the stock footage from Eisenstein and theft of Prokofiev's score for Alexander Nevsky at the beginning; it appeared neither as homage nor even acknowledgement to greater talents which the workmanlike music arrangement and film direction paled against. The characters themselves are two-dimensional at best- mere brush strokes although I couldn't have expected more from an American production for people for whom Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin mean nothing. But it's hard to see how such people could inspire a revolution. Lenin is presented in an understated way which is appropriate I think, but few would recognise Trotsky apart from his diffident arrogance and facial hair. His dragging off to Alma Alta was, like much shown in the film, poetic licence. I won't even go on about why Molotov's portrayal is an historic injustice (a scrawny nothing referred to in the film not as "Iron Arse" but rather "Iron Pants") or how Voroshilov's public denouncing of Stalin's actions to his face is absolutely ludicrous- the man widely-acclaimed as stupidest man in the whole Soviet Republic who facilitated the purge of the Red Army, accommodation with Hitler et cet. would not have survived Stalin to die in his sleep if that had been the case, and I can't fathom the reasons for it to have been put into the script except to have a "chorus" to reiterate the obvious to us. This is just my own opinion- after all, I think the two-part "Hitler: Rise of Evil" is a great introduction for students... I teach Soviet history in Communist China and ironically I have to use a proxy just to offer my thoughts as the ruling fascists have seen fit to block IMDb because it refers to a single film no-one has heard of. Check out my site www.tracesofevil.com for historic documents and resources pertaining to this aera!

shanfloyd 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.