Peter the Great (review)

mitted in Leopold's Congo Independent State, his activities on behalf of the King of the Belgians were unknowingly to lead to them. This film, then, serves only to perpetuate popular and misleading images about Africans and Europeans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stanley is a good case in point because he casts such a long shadow in the cultural heritage of Europeans and Americans. His words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" are known and recalled by many even today. In fact, they typify in some people's minds an era when it was good for two Europeans to encounter each other on a grand scale in the midst of Africa. But it is a faulty image. It is one that leaves out the Africans except as onlookers and it obscures what might have been a better film on Stanley which could have portrayed him in his greatness and in his weakness. at Boma respecting the Administration of the Independent State of the Congo," Cd. 1933, L/C, 11 Feb. 1904, pp. 431-35. Film Review Peter the Great. Produced and directed by Marvin J. Chomsky and Lawrence Schiller. Written for telvision by Edward Anhalt. NBC-TV (February 2-5, 1986), 8 hrs. This piece first appeared as a Film & History FLASH REVIEW in March, 1986, under the title Peter the Great: Peter was Greater than the Mini-Series, But After six months of intensifying advertisement and hype and much, perhaps too much, promise NBC sent its mini-series, Peter The Great head to head for eight hours over four nights into combat with the CBS mini-series, Sins, and assorted ABC programming to kick off the major networks' February quest for market shares. Peter The Great is based on Robert Massie's Pulitzer Prize winning popular biography , Peter The Great: His Life and World, to which it is generally faithful, but Massie was not involved in the film project. It took over nine months with a formidable international cast in the Soviet Union and Europe to make at a cost of twenty-six million dollars, over five million of which went to the Soviet Union for use of its historic locations . The Soviet Union also supplied supporting actors, members of the Red Army and other extras, and historical advisors. The network hoped to capture one hundred million viewers with the mini-series, and while in the Dallas-Fort Worth viewing market , home of J.R. and the South Fork menagerie, Sins barely edged out Peter, this was not always the case nationwide; the network and sponsors undoubtedly achieved 17 their immediate objectives. As an historical docudrama for television, Peter The Great suffers from many of the worst excesses of the genre. Concerns central to historical scholarship are sacrificed for plot elements and characterizations more likely to entertain a contemporary television audience. Poor and/or overdone performances are common, and the portrayal of Peter is very uneven. Of the three depictions, that of the comparatively short Maximillian Schell easily is the most realistic and believable. The dialogue is often overblown and at times ridiculous, especially Peter's crazed threatening to- drag Russia "kicking and screaming into the modern world." Granting artistic license, and given the perceived intelligence of the intended viewing audience, this is perhaps understandable, but not acceptable. Even less so are the inaccuracies and distortions of time. About twenty minutes are allocated to the twenty-one year Great Northern War with Sweden, the major event of Peter's reign. Peter's epilepsy is ignored. Alexander Menshikov never saved young Peter's life. Peter never met William of Orange or Isaac Newton. The statements in the opening narrative on the origins of the streltsy and throughout on Peter's descent from Ivan IV ("The Terrible") are false and unnecesary. In a recent interview, when questioned on the matter of these and other inventions , producer-director Marvin J. Chomsky responded in part that history was "the enemy of art." Since when? The sttidy of history, and especially its presentation, whether in writing or on film, has always been in large part an art form, and art has been invaluable to man in his explanation and understanding of reality...