Thanks for uploading this film. This was my father's favorite film and I watched it to honor his life. I miss him very much. He had old VHS tapes of this movie and watched it so much that those VHS tapes fell apart. So watching this film is like having him with me.
Its a movie... not a documentary. Why people never understand that for dramaturgy reasons it is impossible to be 100% correct in cinema - and yet come to watch a masterpiece shot by Vittorio Storaro is beyond me. Would you say the same about Scorsese as well or Nolan, let alone any Russian propaganda crap? This movie is so much in favour for the former russian greatness - not much of it was left after Stalin though. This movie (entirely shot IN Russia !!) was only possible in 1984 with glasnost and perestroika coming up , because it is showing what this country had to overcome and in fact eventually didn't. This movie is very relevant today since lovely Russians remained a suppressed and exploited farmer state with no future. A f shame that is
Maximilian Schell is amazing. I'm reading his book about the production of this series and it was totally worth it's own movie in itself. Many scenes were shot using a double as he was ill for 4 weeks.
I haven't watched this since 1991 when it was repeated. First shown in 1986. Reminds me of more personal hopeful times. Now I'm middle-aged and have fewer options. Thanks again for bringing the past back to me.
Exactly, I remember, NBC 1986! I regret to this day not buying The VHS version of Peter The Great at $5 at Kmart 1992. It say on the cover full 6 hours. VHS company was from Starmaker.
Peter the Great is a 1986 American biographical historical drama television miniseries directed by Marvin J. Chomsky and Lawrence Schiller, based on Robert K. Massie's 1980 non-fiction book Peter the Great: His Life and World. It stars an ensemble cast consisting of Maximilian Schell, Vanessa Redgrave, Omar Sharif, Trevor Howard, Laurence Olivier, Helmut Griem, Jan Niklas, Elke Sommer, Renée Soutendijk, Ursula Andress, and Mel Ferrer. The miniseries received generally positive reviews from critics and won three Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Miniseries. It was also nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Miniseries or Television Film.
Where the suppression of the Streltsy was concerned , I respect Peter for what he did . He was entirely right . At least he cut off some heads himself . He wasn't a wuss who just signed Death Warrants . He got his Imperial hands dirty too. Gotta respect that .
so true, in the movie they make is seam that the battle of Poltava was right after the battle of narva but in fact Narva was in 1700 and Poltava was in 1709.
@@kingtut4509 Moreover, Aleksej and his paramour Afrosinija (a base serf maid who was pregnant at that time) were caught in Naples, Italy -- not in Vienna. Trial and execution took place in St Petersburg, not Moscow. Charles of Sweden survived Poltava, took refuge in Turkey, then went on warring until 1718. Etc, etc.
Haha The irony is that when Sophia talks to Alexis about Peter's daughter Elizabeth. The actress who plays Sophia ( Vanessa Redgrave ) herself played Elizabeth years later after this mini-series in another mini-series about the life of future Russian monarch Catherine the Great. Haha How Ironic Indeed!!!!
Why did they make Peter so old for this? Even the younger Peter actor wasn't as young as Peter really was for all of the scenes the older actor played him in. He was 28 when he attacked the Swedish Army. Peter never even lived to be as old as this guy. His son was only 10 for that war but he is a married adult in this series.
Isn't funny that Swedens army always is portrayed as well fed and as numerous as the Russian army in the battle of Poltava. Why not portrait the true strengths of Tsar Peter, the empire builder. The biggest achievement was to get the Swedish army to the dire situation, not the battle itself.
Sounds like Sir Derek Jacobi is voicing Alexis and maybe Joss Ackland is dubbing several voices. Several female voices as well have been dubbed. I wonder who by?
Fuckin Newton is a badd ass ,how the fuck did this man calculate he was correct bro !! genius for his time !!! love how this series depicts the ignorance of man and the best of man
As a soldier being executed for coming up on the wrong side of a movement, is part of the job in some thing with which I could deal. But getting frostbitten feet on the way to the gallows is just wrong
I love the muscovite dress featued at the beginning of the series. Its a shame peter the great forced the court to change from the muscovite dress to the 18th-century western European dress. The muscovite dress is absolutely stunning, distinctive and above all-practical. The muscovite dress is designed specifically for Russia's harsh climate and long, brutal winters.
You are wrong. You are evaluating their old Russian dress by how nice they looked. That is not in doubt that their clothes looked fancy, beautiful, or distinctive. There actually were very good practical reasons forr accepting Western clothing. Old Russian clothing was very outdated. As in outdated by more than a hundred years. A lot of those clothes were also similar to clothes of the Orthodox Church prescribed because that church was very powerful politically. Also the church forbade cutting of beards, which also was something that most of Europe allowed and which was the norm by that time. The western clothes peter the great insisted on using actually was easier to use, easier to make, and easier to move in because it actually resembled modern pants. Russian traditional clothes were more like a huge dress, or coat.
Far away from real history. First at all Charles was never interested in women and he and a conspiration with this stupid priest, which give Charles the information about the attack on narva is not confirmed. Next Gordon was never involved in the battle of narva or died there! Never the less, which use they imagine gordon sould have had, with his small group of riders? And all the time what their talking about their battle plans, sound like total confused bullshit, only to build cheap tension towards the audience.
No its only a wast of talent and a lost opportunity to make a really good movie. And people which like this rubbish are the reason why such crap are produced. Blame on you.
I am so glad you wrote about the phone noises! I was listening through a new wireless headset and going crazy when those random tones kept coming through? 😲
why in this movie Battle under Poltava was on autumn ??? Why swedish soldiers were more than russians ??? (Russians had 4 times more soldiers under Poltava than swedish). Why after battle on battlefield nearly weren't dead soldiers ???
Krzysztof Michniewicz More like 2.5 times men, but Swedish army of the era was without peer, best trained and led in Europe, so its quality was a force multiplier and the odds were more or less even, maybe slightly in Russian favor, but not drastically. As for the rest, that's pretty standard in TV productions, even good ones like this.
That is one of the problems when TV and movie makers use the phrase "based on" when referring to a book. Massie only mentions Newton very briefly. he doesn't describe any meeting between the two.
A truly great movie, but with some sloppy historical errors: Charles XII of Sweden is shown too young when the war begins. He was about 20 when he inherited the Swedish throne, and was never a 'womanizer' as portrayed here. He swore not to marry until the war was ended, when he regained the lands Sweden lost in the war. It never happened. He died a bachelor. The war began about 1699 and ended at Poltava in 1709. By Poltava, the Swedes were starving, uniforms worn out, and their supply lines had been cut. I doubt they had many horses left, having had to EAT most of them to stay alive.As an army, they were finished. Those that weren't captured fled to the Turks, their ally against Russia. King Charles fled with them. He suffered a LEG injury BEFORE the battle, not a chest injury during it. Charles was killed at a siege in Norway a few years later while fighting the Danes, Sweden's traditional enemy for control of the gateway to the Baltic. (The Danes, the Saxons and the Poles were allied with Peter in the war to regain the lands they lost to Sweden in the Thirty Years War.) In many of the scenes, the flintlock muskets had the striker plates open, the powder pans would have been empty. Yet, the muskets were shown as FIRING. In some scenes, the "muskets" are actually 20th century RIFLES. As Peter welcomed westerners and the skills they brought, he gave the Swedes he captured the choice of returning to Sweden, or settling down in Russia. As there was little for them back in Sweden except poor farm land, many chose to stay, married Russian girls, settled down to farm, and became what was later called the "White Russians" (or so my Swedish grandmother told me.)
This movie portrays the absolute Ignorance that the paranoid truly shield in and ultimately worship. The truths of God require fearlessness - and Passion, as well as obedience - (but the obedience - must be to the divine knowing when Men have misled, have changed the doctrine, and seek to manipulate the masses, just as the manipulation is portrayed in this film.
Peter's son ran way to get away from his overbearing father. He did not want to be czar, and did not want got start any revolution. That is why he did not lie by answering the questions. He should never have come home. I enjoyed the way stupid religion is maligned. Peter's goals may have been noble, but his means were extreme. Torturing his own son to death qualifies him as Peter the Terrible, not Great. He called himself a saint, named a city after himself, but why in German?
+Frank Dunbar 1. He DID want to be Tzar, he said so himself. And if he did not want to be Tzar why was he concerned at all about Elizabeth? 2. He DID plot against him and he DID actually call him the anti-christ and was willing to sell out his own country just to get back at him. 3. His son dodged more than one bullet because Peter was willing to forgive and forget. Alexis is to be blamed himself for refusing to think for himself, to make his own way in defiance of his father (as he was indeed very overbearing, demanding too much of young Alexis at young age and caring too little when he became older) 4. We already have an Ivan the Terrible... and HE DID kill his son by his own hands over much less than HIGH TREASON. 5. St. Petersburg, named after St. Peter, the first pope/patriarch and Apostel of Jesus Christ. Of course one could draw the connection betwen Peter the Great and Alexander the Great (who had the tendency to call a lot of Cities Alexandria), however I do not believe that was the primary notion. Peter Alexeiwitsch never considered himself a Saint, and while he might have been a Sinner (as many rulers in that time and before have been), I do not believe that qualifies one to be called the Anti-Christ. Especially if you consider that one of the main reasons he was condemned by the church was due to power political issues AND due to their intolerance of other christian confessions. (keep in mind that Peter lived in the 17th to the 18th century, in the wake of the 30 years war where the Holy Roman Empire and half of europe tore itself apart because of their hunger for power and all of this in God's name) As for why in german? I believe it had the closest ties to various german states at that time and that many immigrants/foreigners were in fact germans.
+MajorCoolD Yes you're right MajorCool.....again this tv show lacks the depth and detail that Robert K Massie's book goes into.....but his son did want to be Tzar (Alexis is like his namesake......Peter's father and grandfather). He'd have made a bad tzar, but a good person. Peter WAS a good ruler with that classic RUSSIAN ruler-style: autocratic and absolute. Peter "the great" or "the terrible", however you choose to refer to him is is simply another Ivan "the terrible", but written by scholars down with alot more propaganda hence the "the great".
The two comments above explain it all. You have to understand the times. Peter himself was almost killed as a child and it made him stronger. He could have had his wife and sister killed for their treachery, but he had them stashed away. He probably would have done the same to Alexis, but Alexis had this "martyr complex" instilled by his traitorous priest and his mother. That's the problem with political marriages. They certainly aren't based on love, but I don't understand both Peter and Alexis' wives being uncooperative from the very start. If you ask me, their attitudes were the beginning of the problem. However, it wouldn't have stopped monarchs from having mistresses as the history of most monarchs will bear out. As for Peter, he had grander ideas for Russia than Russia did for itself. He doubled the territory of Russia by taking the land back from the Swedish empire, which at it's peak covered all of Scandinavia, Prussia and the Baltic counties. The battle of Poltava was the end of the expanse of the Swedish empire. The battle actually happened in the summer and it's very hot in Ukraine in the summer. The Swedish king made a very hurried march to the battle field and they were tired and famished. That may or may not have changed the outcome of the battle, but it's likely if the king was more mature, he would have conducted the war a little differently. However, by modernizing Russia and by doubling the size of it's empire, Peter deserved to be called "the Great." As the quote goes, "From great people, great things are expected." Dealing with trying to advance the country and fighting conspiracies and Luddites in your way does require a strong hand. That's why Russians like strong leaders. It may not be better for the individual Russian, but it's better for Russia the country.
Frank Dunbar. But, Tsar Ivan The Terrible of Russia has done worst. Even, though he also killed his own son. And that's why Emperor Peter The Great of Russia is dubbed "Peter The Great", instead of Peter the Terrible
@@tsarivanvasilyevich5796 And I assure you, I have spent some of these last six hours looking for traditional Russian wedding songs. No luck so far! :(
Charles was shot in the foot days before the Poltava battle 1709... He was killed 30th November 1718... At the time of Poltava it wasn't even halftime in the war but it would drag on for another 12 years... Charles and Peter never ever met in person. This story portrays Sweden as the strong aggressor although it was Russia, Denmark, Saxony and later Poland in alliance all attacked Sweden from different sides. Charles purely defended himself and the Swedish empire and beat the crap out of each one, always outnumbered 1 to 3 or four or five... At the time of Poltava the Swedish army had been on foot for nine years.... Outnumbered 5 to 1 Charles finally attacked and lost. However it was not the decisive battle all claim to be.... This series is grossly inaccurate...
Yeah, but it is still a really good movie. I could point out plenty more historical inacuracies but I think that an outstanding movie such as this one can get more people to become interested in history and study it. It is so very fascinating!
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