User Reviews

Probably one of the TV movies I had never heard about until I watched it 3 years ago in history class. This movie details the life of Joseph Stalin, the notorious Communist leader, brought to life by a stunning Robert Duvall who brings out his greatest performance ever.

Narrated by Stalin's daughter Svetlana, this begins with Stalin joining Lenin and the Bolsheviks in their fight against the government, eventually setting up their own government themselves. Most of his biography is well known to us, however this movie brings out the character of Stalin as a psycho villain who did not trust a single person, not even his associates and took extreme measures to exterminate them all. His ego and paranoia alienated him from his friends and his family, even to the point where his wife (Julia Ormond) commits suicide and young Svetlana hating him. But in the end, he does not change and this leads to his downfall and death.

Although the film does suffer in pacing, it is the performance of Robert Duvall that makes it worth watching. In my opinion, Duvall is simply the best actor out of the Godfather series, better than Brando, Pacino, De Niro or Caan. His performances are real and endearing as he simply becomes Stalin by portraying the ruthlessness and paranoia of the mad Communist dictator; a man who could not be solved by his friends or family, and who could not be controlled by anyone even himself. The supporting cast headed by Julia Ormond as Stalin's wife, Maximillian Schell as Lenin and Roshan Seth as Berin do well, but it is Duvall's show all the way. This TV movie is what is not shown in history textbooks. It is engaging and real, but not a masterpiece. History buffs will enjoy watching this, trying to put the pieces together about the madman known as Joseph Stalin.

8 out of 10.

I re-watched this film in order to put faces to the names, as I was studying for a Soviet History midterm. In terms of the film's accuracy, it is largly excellent (from what I have read). However, the tendency of the film to separate the good guys (e.g., Bucharin) from the bad (es.g., Stalin, Beria, Ezhov) is not great historiography, but makes the film easier to digest.

It is hard to know what effect the death of Stalin's wife had on him. Clearly the film needed an overarching plot structure to attempt an explanation of a complex man. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get inside Stalin's head. Duvall's performance is masterful, I think, because he manages to capture the LACK of essence of Stalin. If anything, the man was driven by hatred and little else--a hatred that is difficult to articulate, but which was at least admirably displayed in the film.

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.

To appreciate this film you might read any one of the best accounts of Stalin's dictatorship by Roy Medvedev, Dmitri Volkogonov, Edvard Radzinsky, Simon Sebag Montefiore, or Donald Rayfield. If you know these books you'll find little reason to argue with how this film portrays 'The Boss'. Other reviewers on this site have noted how well Robert Duvall captures Stalin's surly, crude, cunning, sadistic, paranoid personality. They're right. He's marvellous in the role. One reviewer has questioned whether Voroshilov would have dared to shout at Stalin, as he does in this film, at the start of the war. This is a fair point as Stalin picked his men carefully for their inability to stand up to him or take initiative. However, Donald Rayfield cites an example of the normally slavish Voroshilov doing something very like what is portrayed in the film, shouting at Stalin as war with the Nazis was looming for murdering most of the Red Army high command and so crippling the defences of the USSR. He was one of the few men to do anything of the kind and survive Stalin

The film is shot at the scenes of the crimes - the Kremlin at Stalin's Kuntsevo dacha - and is sumptuous watching as a result. Watch out for Satlin's huge, waddling shadow on the ceiling as he climbs a great staircase, an incubus about to settle on the Soviet People. It might be a standard trick but it doesn't look contrived.

Rather less convincing are the portrayals of Stalin's wife and some of his associates. This is the fault of the script or the direction or both, not the actors. For example, Stalin's second wife Nadya was not quite the principled heroine seen here who apparently took her own life because she saw no other escape from the evil that her husband was bringing to the country. The real Nadya brought some of her own problems to her marriage and these contributed to her death. Bukharin, wretched in his final weeks, may have been the best of them but that was saying little. He was not quite the noble, tragic 'swan' portrayed. He was prone to hysterics - about his own problems primarily - the suffering millions could suffer as long as he was approved of. During his final imprisonment, Bukharin wrote to Stalin offering to do anything, put his name to anything, if only Stalin would be his 'friend' again. Stalin takes all the heat and deserves plenty but many of the rest seem like innocents, fooled by him, finding out too late that they were caught up in his evil and corrupted or destroyed by it. But Stalin, like Hitler and any other dictator, was only possible because those around him saw advantage for themselves in supporting him. If there's a problem with this film it's that it lets some of Stalin's minions off the hook. It settles for extremes - Stalin and his chiefs of secret police on the one hand, and the good or loyal but naive on the other. But the only innocents were the people of the former Soviet Union, those far from power whose lives were destroyed according to the requirements of a command economy - so many deaths and so many slaves were required from every walk of life, like so many tons of iron, to meet quotas. (They are acknowledged in the film's dedication). Those around Stalin, however, were all up to their elbows in blood just as he was, obsessed with their own positions, Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Kamanev included. This is perhaps something to bear in mind in watching a generally excellent and historically accurate film. If you're interested in the psychology of Stalin and his henchmen try Jack Gold's 'Red Monarch' (1983) with Colin Blakely as Stalin. The history comes second to the general impression in that film but it's worth the sacrifice. Duvall as Stalin is marvellous in a deadly serious way, but Blakely is bloody marvellous in a deadly funny way. Red Monarch also spares the audience English peppered with 'Da' to remind you that these people are really speaking Russian, and faked Eastern-European accents.

It could have been better. So why the 10? Stalin is sort of human. People like him, like Hitler, like so many other embodiments of evil are exceedingly easy to dehumanize, to make them a devil and not a man.

Stalin does a pretty decent job of showing the blindingly evil side of the man and still giving him a human feel. It makes him accessible.

So why could it have been better? Stalin was a revolutionary. He was active from the start and played a major role on the Bolshevik side. He was the Soviet premier and he forced a backwards nation to industrialize in a single generation and that is a global record in itself. He fought WWII and crippled the Nazi war machine at the battle of Kursk.

The movie should have been an epic. There is a much greater story to tell there. Instead it is tourniqueted. It is cut short and anyone with even a simple enough grasp of Stalin to vaguely know who he is gets the feeling that they are missing out.

They made Che, years later, into two epic films. A life as important--and evil--of Stalin deserved more than a made-for-TV movie despite the quality.

I freakin love this movie. I don't even really know why. Probably a combination of factors. First of all, this was the first movie I ever saw Robert Duvall in, and he does an exceptional job as he has done in every role he has ever had. Also, it gave me a decent historical picture of Stalin which led to years of fascination with the man. It was also one of HBO's first in a long string of award winning historical fiction TV movies, and still my personal favorite. If you like Robert Duvall and great dialogue, I highly recommend it.

This is one of the better historical biopics. Robert Duvall manages to do a credible job in portraying the title character - Stalin. Not surprisingly, Duvall is in just about very scene, and he succeeds in doing credit to the role. He approximates Stalin, which is the most any actor could possibly do. The movie works because instead of sensationalizing Stalin's excesses, which are addressed in the movie, it instead deals with his personal behavior, especially his relationships, both personnel and professional, with those closest to him. The movie shows that Stalin was not incapable of love nor of empathy; it also shows that he revered Lenin and was committed to ensuring that Lenin's work continue. The movie also shows what was Stalin's fundamental character flaw - his inability to trust, the cause of which remains unknown. This flaw led to abuses of power that are perhaps unequaled in history. One of the more interesting features of Stalin was his tendency to rationalize his most outrageous and murderous decisions and repress his own feelings, the combination of which made him come off as cold and uncaring. For Stalin did care - about the preserving and protecting the revolution which he identified with himself. Stalin simply could nor separate himself personally from his work, and this distorted his relationships, causing him to do things that were, to say the least, hurtful. Stalin had a tendency to lash out at those closest to him, which made working with him challenging. The movie shows that one had to be careful as to how they acted and what they said around Stalin, because Stalin was looking for any excuse to prove you an enemy of the revolution, which in turn meant being his enemy. If one is interested in learning something about Joseph Stalin the person, then watch this movie.

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!

I could watch this film over and over again - why It was a TV Movie rather than a box-office smash I will never know. Robert Duvall Is absolutely flawless In his portrayal of Stalin - we're talking Oscar-deserving acting here! Roshan Seth as the creepy,selfish, arrogant Laventy Beria Is superb;Colin Jeavons as Yagoda;Jim Carter as Sergo;the great Maximilian Schell as Lenin (what fantastic make-up;I thought Lenin had been reincarnated)!The list goes on,a marvellous mix of International actors who blend beautifully to recreate the lives,times and crimes of Stalin,his entourage and his enemies,both real and Imagined. I've studied Stalin a lot over the years and this film Is about as historically accurate as one could get. This piece of pure genius Is a must-see. Absolutely fantastic In every respect!

"Josef Stalin's crimes caused the deaths of tens of millions of Soviet Citizens," the epilogue tells us, but you might not know it from watching this film. A few allusions and allegations aside, the impression you get is that of a gangster, Little Caesar maybe, who bumps off a couple of rivals while taking the place of the Big Boy. The few executions we witness are personalized.

It's based on the memoirs of Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, a big seller in the 1960s, so one would expect a kind of benign view of the Soviet dictator and, indeed, Svetlana appears to be the only person towards whom he shows genuine affection. He loved his wife, Julia Ormond, of course but mistreated her to the point of suicide. He hated his illegitimate son and kept his own son in disregard. So it's a daughter's view of her admittedly flawed father, but let's keep some things in the family too.

Among the things kept in the family -- simply hinted at baldly or ignored altogether -- are, let me think, (1) the assassination of Trotsky, (2) the purges of the officer corps in the Russian Army during the 30s, the word "purge" being spoken only once, (3) the non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin, (4) Stalin's not believing the intelligence indicating Hitler was about to invade, (5) the use of "blocking units" that shot any Soviet soldiers retreating, (6) the use of penal details to march across mine field or draw fire from the enemy, (7) the disposal of all spontaneous resistance leaders, Cossacks, and Russians who had been German POWs and possibly "tainted" by Fascist ideology, (8) the disastrous mismanagement of industrialization and (9) the famine resulting from Lysenkoism -- a rejection of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics. So, yes, Stalin killed tens of millions of Russians. More than Hitler killed.

It's not a terrible flick, especially considering it was made for television by HBO. The make up is superb and it was shot on location. Some of the actors turn in performances that we can relish -- Max Schell and Joeren Krabbé, for instance. But Robert Duvall slogs through the role of Stalin as he would a puddle of mud. Okay, I think we can all agree that the Stalin we're familiar with was no ballet dancer, nor was he a spellbinder like Hitler. But if Duvall's intent to was to portray the murdering thug as a deliberate ox driving towards a goal, he's succeeded all too well. Julia Ormond, on the other hand, is splendid as Stalin's tormented wife. She makes responsiveness visible. With Duvall it's mostly guesswork.

Most disturbing is what looks like carelessness in the writing. Two examples. This was a seminal period in Russian history, and early on, after we learn of the Russians' withdrawal from World War I, we learn that another war is going on -- "a civil war." Well, WHAT civil war? We never find out. Nothing about White or Red Russians, or Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, or why there was wariness between Georgia and Moscow.

"Trotsky had missed his last chance to stop my father," we hear. We've already found out that Stalin and Trotsky hated one another -- but why? What did Trotsky want that Stalin didn't want? It's enough to drive a dummy like me to Wikipedia.

Still, for all its weaknesses, I applaud its having been made at all. "Our history required Stalin," one character pronounces after Stalin's death. It's more than our history books require. Russia -- its history and culture -- was an adversary for so long that for too many of us it's not much more than a vaguely ominous blank.

The first person in line for Stalin's purges should have been the makeup designer. Duvall looks almost as unnatural as Hugo Weaving in his mask in V for Vendetta. Considering that he speaks and acts as if he is in one of his Godfather movies, the overall effect is extremely weird and rather one-dimensional.

Perhaps Stalin was indeed simply a very nasty paranoid despot who murdered everyone in sight, but if so this film is much too long, since we get the message very early on.

It might have helped if we could have had more of the history involved - for example how exactly Stalin managed to take power after Lenin's death and his tactics in playing off the right against the left (and vice versa). The show trials could also have been exploited more, as could the wide extent of the purges - and also the minor matter of the Second World War, which is largely glossed over.

As it is, just seeing Stalin liquidate the rest of the film's cast one by one is horrifying but rather monotonous.

I'm not a great fan of biography films, but Stalin is an exception. This film was fantastic when I first watched it in History class. This film basically showcases the important aspects of the life the Russian leader Joseph Stalin. From his early political career to the rise of the Soviet Union and eventually the Moscow Show Trials, the Great Purges and the last stages of his life, told through the eyes of his daughter. Stalin features a powerful and riveting performance by Robert Duvall, as well as similarly great performances from the supporting actors including Maximillian Schell and Julia Ormond. The music by Stanislas Syrewicz is epic and suits the film very well. The screenplay is very gripping and well-written. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is wonderful as well as the atmosphere. Also look out for Kevin McNally in an small role before he played Gibbs in Pirates of the Caribbean. Overall, Stalin is must-watch film for those interested in biographies, historical figures and well, good movies.

A mixed film for me. First off we get a lot of narration which I think is often a sign a film isn't working when someone needs to narrate over it to tell us what's happening, "In Russia there was this...... "When this character went here he did this....." We also get a lot of archive footage of all the revolutions and fighting because the actual film that they have shot is nearly 100% just people sat in rooms talking to each other, it's almost like a play and certainly not very cinematic. Events get rushed through at breakneck speed. I think it was a good lead performance, Stalin is shown as cold, grim, merciless, a paranoid despot with no likeable traits. He's even a brute to his son and wife. The other figures around him are also fleshed out, some of the casting works but not for Beria, why is he Indian with a full head of hair? There's also no mention of really important historic moments like the division of Berlin between East and West or the soviets pressing need to acquire the atom bomb. All in all a mixed review.

"Stalin" is a sensationalized made for TV drama about the Soviet dictator. Much of the film focuses on Stalin's relationship his first wife, Nadezhda Alleluieva, which tends to dilute the more interesting plot elements. The film also tends to humanize Stalin a bit too much, trying to show his 'tender' side, as well as many of the old Bolsheviks without discussing their own crimes.

The filmmakers seem to be quite ignorant of the way many of the main characters looked and acted - strange given the tremendous access to research materials. Robert Duvall's Stalin is highly reminiscent of an Italian gangster. Lenin, played well by Schell, looks like Bozo the Clown. Bukharin is portrayed by a man who looks nothing like him whatsoever, and has more hair than Bukharin ever had. Conversely, Yezhov is depicted as quite balding and wearing a mustache - neither of which is accurate (even though the actor's eyes and height were dead on). Beria and Yagoda, by contrast, are a closer bet to the real thing. Julia Ormond does very well here.

There are various minor historical errors here and there, coupled with dramatic liberties, but this - sadly - is usual fare for a TV production.

Ivan Passer made a very good job directing this "Docudrama", and everybody actress and actors give us a masterpiece. Those that do not agree shall remember that each one choose the role they want to play... They have the freedom to reject it also, so I must say "Thank you" to all the crew, you were really great. Great casting indeed. There is only one thing that is regrettable, I would like this "mini" much longer, I shall say 9 or 12 hours, maybe more. That will give much more precision in all sense in many many details in the story. And making a review of the sound, light, locations, make up, wardrobe etc. They were very good. I had a very good time seeing this movie. Duval performance is really extraordinary and unforgettable as Stalin, and Julia Ormond (Nadya), M. Schell(Lenin),J. Carter(Sergo), M.Ewan(Khrushchev),C. Jeavons (Yagoda) were most excellent.10/10

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.

I was worried that this film would have portrayed Glorious Comrade Stalin in a bad way, but, instead, it shows him in his true glorious light: he loved his kids and he knew how to deal with counter-revolutionary traitors.

Unfortunately, the movie didn't explain well enough why it was necessary to have enemies of the people like Kirov, Bukharin, Yagoda, Zinoviev and Kamenev executed.

While they mentioned that Svetlana was living in England, they should have mentioned that she defected to the west like the traitor to the Motherland she was.

This film would have been ruined by a big studio production. there is no way to "hollywoodize" Josef Stalin. He was perhaps the worst and most brutal tyrant of the 20th century. Estimates range from 20-40 million deaths he was responsible for. He was in no way a nice man. in him there was not an ounce of decency, only a vast void of feeling that Robert Duvall conveyed very well. the film itself almost seemed hollow or lifeless at times, and generally moved slowly. Passer's meticulous method pays off, however, with powerful performances from Plowright, Schell, and Ormond complimenting Duvall's brilliance. After viewing this film it should be difficult not to place Duvall amongst the present day acting legends (DeNiro, Nicholson, Pacino, Hopkins, etc). Very few have played such a wide variety of roles as Duvall has. My whole point in this being, "Stalin" IS Duvall's picture. Duvall is Stalin. If you enjoy well made, historically accurate films and Robert Duvall both you're in for a treat. Otherwise this film will bore you.

This movie is just superb in every respect. It is an outstanding, chilling portrayal of one of the biggest mass murderers of all time. Robert Duvall gives his best performance ever, which is amazing, considering the stellar acting by the international cast. I simply cannot imagine another cast that could be any better or even nearly as good as this one. If you like historical drama, you will love this one.

I watched Stalin and think that it is a good portrayal of Stalin's life. I would have liked to see more actors such as people playing Hitler instead of showing stock footage. One downfall of the movie was that it skips over Stalin's involvement in WWII and just starts the movie in 1917. I would have liked to see more of Stalin's childhood in the movie and maybe some cold war clips near the end of his life. Overall, I was pleased with the content. Stalin was one of the worst people to ever live, and this movie does well in showing how bad Stalin really was. I also like that the movie is told from the perspective of his daughter, Svetlana. This gives the movie a more personal touch to what his life was really like. The movie also used Robert Conquest as one of the contributors, which is good because he wrote Stalin: Breaker of Nations in 1992, also at the time of this movie.

When it comes to mass murderers, they don't get much bigger or worse than the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Ruling the Soviet Union from the mid-1920's to 1953, his reign was one of death and terror on a scale of such heights that it would give Adolf Hitler a run for his money as to who was worse. And yet surprisingly there are very few films (at least in the Western world) made about this man or his reign of terror. One of the few films from the west about him is the HBO produced docudrama "Stalin". Made not long after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, it pretty accurately chronicles Stalin, from his rise in the Bolshevik party to the height of his monolithic power at the end of World War II. Playing Stalin is Robert Duvall. Now I admit, at first glance that sounds like one of the worst casting decisions ever. However, believe me when I tell you that not only does Duvall look and sound like Stalin through the use of good makeup and an accent, he BECOMES Stalin. In fact, the more the movie went on, the less and less I saw him as Duvall and the more and more I saw him as the real Stalin. It's a real testament to Duvall's ability as an actor, especially considering that Duvall is about as far away from an ethnic Georgian as you can get (Stalin was from the former Soviet Georgia). I would even go as far to say that Duvall's portrayal of Stalin is perhaps the closest we have as to who the real Stalin was, a paranoid mass murderer who was just as much at ease condemning his former close comrades to death as he was starving the Russian peasants in order to pay for the industrialization of the Soviet Union.

Of course, Duvall's performance is the not the only good one here; the epic drama boasts an amazing supporting cast in the form of the late, great Maximilian Schell as Lenin, Julia Ormond as Stalin's suffering wife Nadya, Joan Plowright as Nadya's mother Olga, Roshan Seth as the treacherous Beria, and many more that I don't have the space for. In addition, the sets for the Kremlin are breath taking and for good reason: It's the real thing! The film crew was granted unprecedented freedom to the Kremlin buildings after the fall of Soviet Union, as well as the dacha just outside Moscow that Stalin stayed at the most. All of this gives the film a very realistic look that might not have been possible otherwise. Some people have expressed disappointment that the film did not pay as much attention to Stalin's atrocities as maybe it could have and it is indeed true that we barely get a brief look at World War II from Stalin's viewpoint, the war that propelled him to his greatest heights of power. However one has to keep in mind that there's only so much you can put in a film, especially when it's a film about Stalin.

Furthermore, I would argue that we do get a look at Stalin's crimes, albeit a subtle one, be it the scene where Nadya witnesses people being herded into cattle cars while passing through a train station or the general talk of people disappearing left and right throughout the film. It's also important to keep in mind that the film is meant to be about the man Stalin and the effect he had on those closest to him and on this, the film largely succeeds. The movie is also thankfully widely available on you tube and DVD as well, which makes viewing it very easy. In short, "Stalin" is a film that one should watch, not only because of the importance of history but as a warning to future generations of what can happen when people collectively give up freedoms, checks and balances, their faith in God and what's right, and instead put all their hope in one man with absolute power over life and death. For in the words of Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." These words indeed describe Stalin to a tee. So watch, learn, and never forget the lessons of the monster that was Joseph Stalin.

It's certainly not a brief, inaccurate retelling, but it's neither a history captured. Hollywood with the help of Czechoslovakian immigrate Ivan Passer and famous movie stars offers quite a simplified vision of a terrible man Stalin and his crimes. The history of Russian revolution and USSR from 1917 till 1953 appears as a screen version of quite honest but so much oversimplified cartoon-like cliches and sketches. For every Russian spectator all the characters (beginning with Stalin) are unbelievable in every way from make-up to behavior. Seems like all of them escaped from an amateurish waxwork museum. Even the magnificent Russian actors Feklistov, Tabakov and Larionov had skillfully degraded and performed very brief roles which is a great shame considering their high level. Quite a Hollywood is an American attempt to warmer a Monster type with a lyrical story line of Stalin's relationship with his daughter Svetlana who is telling the story.

This is one of my favorite movies and Robert Duvall does an excellent job in his portrayal of Stalin, the most cruel dictator of the 20th century. Even though many people ignore the true facts, Stalin killed far more people than Hitler (50 million Stalin, 25 million Hitler). As a victim of the Communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro, I deeply identify with this realistic movie. If you have not seen Stalin, you can buy it at Amazon.com at a very reasonable price. This is a movie that deserves to be seen more than one time. It's a true masterpiece.

Personally, I did not think it was possible to make a rather objective film about Stalin. Certainly, it could not have been made in the 50s or 60s. And even in the 70s and 80s, there was a tremendous resistance to explore the Russian motivations of communism. But with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, screenwriters and producers once again began to explore the dark world of Russian communism. The direction of this film by Ivan Passer is practically perfect; a nearly impossible task for a three hour film. It was obviously a labor of love. And what can one say about the portrayal of Stalin by Duvall, a previous Academy Award winner. I had always thought The Apostle was his best role; but now I have changed my mind. This role is the complete antithesis of Gandhi, and just as difficult to pull off. It did not reap the awards that Gandhi gathered, but it certainly deserved them. An extremely underrated film of unspeakable horrors; even worse than the Holocaust; and that is saying a lot. Even Nikita Khrushchev comes off looking good when compared to others in Stalin's satanic circle. Whenever I learn something from a film (the fact that Trotsky's biggest mistake was turning down the first Secretariat position, and allowing Stalin to take it) I always appreciate that kind of a film more than the several hundreds that teach me nothing. A film not to be missed.