Product Details

• Actors: Robert Duvall, Maximilian Schell, Julia Ormond
• Directors: Ivan Passer
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM/UA Home Video
• Run Time: 177 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000E4UCOQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,927 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Stalin's rise from obscure revolutionary to feared leader of Russia is documented in vivid detail in this outstanding, critically acclaimed docudrama. Academy Award(R) winner Robert Duvall leads an exceptional international cast through the years when Stalin took over power for the ailing Lenin (played by Maximilian Schell, 1961 Best Actor Oscar(R) winner for Judgment at Nuremberg) to his own death more than thirty years later. His relationship with his wife (Julia Ormond) and family and his mistrust of his friends -- which results in him condemning them to death -- tell the most chilling story of the kind of man Stalin was, and what kind of horror he unleashed on his nation. An epic in the tradition of Doctor Zhivago, Stalin features stunning cinematography of many historical sights, including the Kremlin and Lenin's actual apartment. Historically significant and highly entertaining, Stalin is a must-see film for audiences of all ages. -------------------------- Reviews from other editions on Amazon... "Nevermind the "purist" reviews - this is an excellent film, January 27, 2004 Reviewer: lou (Southern California) - This film is historically excellent...." "Good Characterization of Stalin, Bad History, August 17, 2003 Reviewer: givbatam3 "givbatam3" (REHOVOT Israel) - In the past, apologists for Stalin (including many of his victims) said that Stalin was good, but he was surrounded by bad people. This film turns this on its head saying that Stalin was bad, but he was surrounded by good people...."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Characterization of Stalin, Bad History, August 17, 2003

By 

givbatam3 "givbatam3" (REHOVOT Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stalin [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In the past, apologists for Stalin (including many of his victims) said that Stalin was good, but he was surrounded by bad people. This film turns this on its head saying that Stalin was bad, but he was surrounded by good people. Both of these are wrong--the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution and the leaders of the USSR in the period following the revolution were all up to their necks in blood. Robert Duvall gives an excellent portrayal of Stalin, emphasizing that he, unlike his ranting partner in mass murder Hitler, was soft-spoken and basically uncharismatic. Duvall correctly does not use a "Russian" accented English because Stalin spoke Russian with a heavy Georgian accent. Having said this, the historical aspects of the film are very poor. First of all, Maximilian Schell's portrayal of Lenin is way off base. The Old Bolsheviks like Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Ordzhonikidze and Kirov are shown to be basically well-meaning people who got trapped in Stalin's web. This is untrue, they were all involved in mass terror, justifying it in the name of a "higher good". In Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago", he points out what a pathetic man Bukharin really was and how he so freely shed tears for the injustice committed to his person, and yet he had no pity on the millions of others who suffered. At the end of the film, Khruschev says that Stalin's crimes ("the millions" he liquidated) had to be accounted for, whereas,in reality, he himself took an active role in the Great Terror.
The film shows very little of what the effect of "Stalinism" was on the average Soviet citizen, with the exception of a scene where Stalin's wife confronts the effects of the mass famine in the Ukraine. The film does not really show the "cult of the personality". It would have been effective if the film had shown how, when Stalin would enter a hall full of people, the crowd would applaud for a very long time because everyone was afraid to be the first to stop clapping. Similarly, towards the end of the film, we see a physician nervously examining Stalin without any mention of the infamous "Doctors Plot" frame-up in which Jewish doctors were falsely accused of trying to murder top Soviet officials which would explain the physicians hesitancy in examing his famous patient.

In spite of the many faults of this film, I have still given it three stars rating because it is important for people to become aware of what this monster did to so many millions of innocent people and who was supported by millions of otherwise good people, both inside and outside the USSR.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but should have covered WWII a bit more!, August 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Stalin [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I enjoyed this movie, and found it a very good portrayal of Stalin's reign, but some things bothered me; particularly, it seems to potray Lenin as sort of a "good guy" who lets a Revolutionary government on the right track fall into the hands of a madman. Since Lenin himself was a particularly vicious figure who killed more people in his brief rule than had been killed under the Czar in 40 years previous, I didn't think that was the right way to present him.

Even more importantly, though, they blow over the entire Great Patriotic War (i.e. World War II) in just a couple of scenes! I know the movie would have been very long if lots of extra scenes about the war were added, but I think a few other scenes from the movie could be cut to make room for arguably the most important part of Stalin's dictatorship. As it is, it goes from Stalin's cowardly reaction to the German invasion almost immediately to the end of the war.

Overall, though, don't let the criticisms above dissuade you from seeing it; the acting is excellent, and it shows quite well how rapidly post-revolutionary hopes were killed off under Stalin's madness. I especially liked the scene with the old woman chasing after the train yelling at Stalin's wife, trying to make sure the benevolent Stalin would learn about the starvation and brutality going on in the countryside and put a stop to it when in reality he was the very man who organized it. Nice....

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could have been a great miniseries, January 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Stalin [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have to agree with the viewer who wished more had been included about the great patriotic war. To cover the reign of Stalin in depth, however, would take a really good miniseries along the lines of "Roots". If you are looking for some insight as to the inner workings of Stalin's regime, this is a good beginning. If this had been a theatrical release, it would have been an Oscar contender. Yes, the accents get a little cheesy. Sometimes they sound more like Scottish than Russian. As for the "laughable" make up jobs referred to in other reviews, I challenge you to watch it while leafing through Richard King's "The Commissar Vanishes". Then you will see just how uncanny the likenesses are. (Except for Vorishlikov who sports a mustache in the movie, but not in official photos.) For the record, though, Lenin did have a "dome head"!