"Taras Bulba" dates from the early sixties, at the height of the popularity of the epic film. Most of the epics of the fifties and sixties were based on either Classical antiquity or the Bible, but occasionally Hollywood could turn to subject matter less familiar to Western audiences, in this case to a novel by the Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol. (Gogol was born in the Ukraine, although he wrote in Russian).
The story is set in the seventeenth century, at a time when the Ukraine was under Polish domination. The title character, Taras Bulba, is the leader of a Cossack clan on the steppes. The Cossacks are Polish subjects, and an important source of manpower for the Polish Army, but are humiliated and treated as little more than barbarians by their overlords. The film deals with the relationship between Taras and his sons, Andrei and Ostap. He sends the two young men to the university in Kiev, at this time a Polish city, to obtain an education, but they learn little except how deeply the Poles despise them. Andrei does, however, fall in love with Natalia, an aristocratic Polish lady, and in future Andrei's loyalties are split between his father's cause and his feelings for Natalia. These divided loyalties will come to the fore when a Cossack army besieges the Polish-held fortress of Dubno and Andrei learns that Natalia is present inside the city.
The storyline is a complicated, and occasionally confusing, one, and although both Yul Brynner as Taras and Tony Curtis as Andrei play their roles with aplomb, in neither case is this really their greatest performance. The Austrian-born Christine Kaufmann as Natalia looks stunning, but does not display any great charisma and it is clear why she did not become a major star in the English-language cinema, although she was well-known in Germany and Austria. (She did, however, go on to become the second Mrs Tony Curtis, following his divorce from Janet Leigh).
The film was directed by the British-born J. Lee Thompson. During his British period of the fifties, Thompson mostly worked in black-and-white and specialised in small-scale social-realist dramas, films noirs and war films like "Woman in a Dressing Gown", "Yield to the Night", "Tiger Bay" and "Ice-Cold in Alex". Moving to Hollywood seems to have given him the chance to work on a larger canvas; his next film after this one was to be "Kings of the Sun", another large-scale epic also starring Brynner.
The main attraction of the film today lies in its visual appeal and in its action sequences. The Ukrainian steppes seemed like the ideal setting for sweeping photography and shots of massed cavalry thundering across the plains, although at the height of the Cold War the film could not actually be shot there. Instead, the Argentine pampas stood in for the Ukraine. The action scenes are well staged, notably the opening and closing battles and the scene when Andrei and a man who has accused him of cowardice have to jump across a chasm on horseback until one of them falls in. "Taras Bulba" may the sort of film they don't make any more, and we may be none the worse off for that fact, but we can still enjoy watching it when there is nothing else to do on a wet weekend. 6/10
Some goofs. The King of Poland is referred to as "His Imperial Majesty". No Polish King ever used this title, which would only be used by an Emperor. In the film the Polish flag is a gold eagle on a green field. In reality the Polish eagle has always been white on a red field.
The story is set in the seventeenth century, at a time when the Ukraine was under Polish domination. The title character, Taras Bulba, is the leader of a Cossack clan on the steppes. The Cossacks are Polish subjects, and an important source of manpower for the Polish Army, but are humiliated and treated as little more than barbarians by their overlords. The film deals with the relationship between Taras and his sons, Andrei and Ostap. He sends the two young men to the university in Kiev, at this time a Polish city, to obtain an education, but they learn little except how deeply the Poles despise them. Andrei does, however, fall in love with Natalia, an aristocratic Polish lady, and in future Andrei's loyalties are split between his father's cause and his feelings for Natalia. These divided loyalties will come to the fore when a Cossack army besieges the Polish-held fortress of Dubno and Andrei learns that Natalia is present inside the city.
The storyline is a complicated, and occasionally confusing, one, and although both Yul Brynner as Taras and Tony Curtis as Andrei play their roles with aplomb, in neither case is this really their greatest performance. The Austrian-born Christine Kaufmann as Natalia looks stunning, but does not display any great charisma and it is clear why she did not become a major star in the English-language cinema, although she was well-known in Germany and Austria. (She did, however, go on to become the second Mrs Tony Curtis, following his divorce from Janet Leigh).
The film was directed by the British-born J. Lee Thompson. During his British period of the fifties, Thompson mostly worked in black-and-white and specialised in small-scale social-realist dramas, films noirs and war films like "Woman in a Dressing Gown", "Yield to the Night", "Tiger Bay" and "Ice-Cold in Alex". Moving to Hollywood seems to have given him the chance to work on a larger canvas; his next film after this one was to be "Kings of the Sun", another large-scale epic also starring Brynner.
The main attraction of the film today lies in its visual appeal and in its action sequences. The Ukrainian steppes seemed like the ideal setting for sweeping photography and shots of massed cavalry thundering across the plains, although at the height of the Cold War the film could not actually be shot there. Instead, the Argentine pampas stood in for the Ukraine. The action scenes are well staged, notably the opening and closing battles and the scene when Andrei and a man who has accused him of cowardice have to jump across a chasm on horseback until one of them falls in. "Taras Bulba" may the sort of film they don't make any more, and we may be none the worse off for that fact, but we can still enjoy watching it when there is nothing else to do on a wet weekend. 6/10
Some goofs. The King of Poland is referred to as "His Imperial Majesty". No Polish King ever used this title, which would only be used by an Emperor. In the film the Polish flag is a gold eagle on a green field. In reality the Polish eagle has always been white on a red field.