Taras Bulba

Plot synopsis:
=== 1842 revised edition ===
Taras Bulba's two sons, Ostap and Andriy, return home from an Orthodox seminary in Kiev. Ostap is the more adventurous, whereas Andriy has deeply romantic feelings of an introvert. While in Kiev, he fell in love with a young Polish noble girl, the daughter of the Governor of Kowno, but after a couple of meetings (edging into her house and in church), he stopped seeing her when her family returned home. Taras Bulba gives his sons the opportunity to go to war. They reach the Cossack camp at the Zaporozhian Sich, where there is much merrymaking. Taras attempts to rouse the Cossacks to go into battle. He rallies them to replace the existing Hetman when the Hetman is reluctant to break the peace treaty.
They soon have the opportunity to fight the Poles, who rule all Ukraine west of the Dnieper River. The Poles, led by their ultra-Catholic king, are accused of atrocities against Orthodox Christians, in which they are aided by Jews. After killing many of the Jewish merchants at the Sich, the Cossacks set off on a campaign against the Poles. They besiege Dubno Castle where, surrounded by the Cossacks and short of supplies, the inhabitants begin to starve. One night a Tatar woman comes to Andriy and rouses him. He finds her face familiar and then recalls she is the servant of the Polish girl he was in love with. She advises him that all are starving inside the walls. He accompanies her through a secret passage starting in the marsh that goes into the monastery inside the city walls. Andriy brings loaves of bread with him for the starving girl and her mother. He is horrified by what he sees and in a fury of love, forsakes his heritage for the Polish girl.
Meanwhile, several companies of Polish soldiers march into Dubno to relieve the siege, and destroy a regiment of Cossacks. A number of battles ensue. Taras learns of his son's betrayal from Yankel the Jew, whom he saved earlier in the story. During one of the final battles, he sees Andriy riding in Polish garb from the castle and has his men draw him to the woods, where he takes him off his horse. Taras bitterly scolds his son, telling him "I gave you life, I will take it", and shoots him dead.
Taras and Ostap continue fighting the Poles. Ostap is captured while his father is knocked out. When Taras regains consciousness he learns that his son was taken prisoner by the Poles. Yankel agrees to take Taras to Warsaw, where Ostap is held captive, hiding Taras in a cartload of bricks. Once in Warsaw, a group of Jews help Yankel dress Taras as a German count. They go into the prison to see Ostap, but Taras unwittingly reveals himself as a Cossack, and only escapes by use of a great bribe. Instead, they attend the execution the following day. During the execution, Ostap does not make a single sound, even while being broken on the wheel, but, disheartened as he nears death, he calls aloud on his father, unaware of his presence. Taras answers him from the crowd, thus giving himself away, but manages to escape.
Taras returns home to find all of his old Cossack friends dead and younger Cossacks in their place. He goes to war again. The new Hetman wishes to make peace with the Poles, which Taras is strongly against, warning that the Poles are treacherous and will not honor their words. Failing to convince the Hetman, Taras takes his regiment away to continue the assault independently. As Taras predicted, once the new Hetman agrees to a truce, the Poles betray him and kill a number of Cossacks. Taras and his men continue to fight and are finally caught in a ruined fortress, where they battle until the last man is defeated.
Taras is nailed and tied to a tree and set aflame. Even in this state, he calls out to his men to continue the fight, claiming that a new Tsar is coming who will rule the earth. The story ends with Cossacks on the Dniester River recalling the great feats of Taras and his unwavering Cossack spirit.
=== Differences from 1835 edition ===
The original 1835 edition reflects the Ukrainian context of the story. In response to critics who called his The Government Inspector "anti-Russian", and under pressure from the Russian government that considered Taras Bulba too Ukrainian, Gogol decided to revise the book. The 1842 edition was expanded by three chapters and rewritten to include Russian nationalist themes in keeping with the official tsarist ideology at the time, as well as the author's changing political and aesthetic views (later manifested in Dead Souls and Selected Passages from Correspondence with his Friends). The changes included three new chapters and a new ending (in the 1835 edition, the protagonist is not burned at the stake by the Poles). The little-known original edition was only translated into Ukrainian and made available to the Ukrainian audience in 2005.

Tags: violence

Review:
Although the famous Nikolai Gogol novel, Taras Bulba, was filmed many times, this version starring Tony Curtis and Yul Brynner is the best known at least in the USA.
Brynner sends them off to school in Poland to learn all the Poles know.While there Curtis falls in love with a Polish princess Christine Kauffman.
It's the beginning of his downfall as a Cossack.In his memoirs Tony Curtis says that Yul Brynner was a strangely aloof character with a sort of self imposed grandeur about him in his manner.
I certainly can't visualize anyone else in the role, including Burt Lancaster who originally had the screen rights then gave them to Tony Curtis when he couldn't do the film.
Of course Brynner being in the title role might have had some resentments to being second billed to Curtis, but Curtis in fact as a co-producer and he who produces decides billing.Curtis also mentions that on the Argentine pampas location away from American laws, the long banned 'flying W' was used in the filming of the battle and charge scenes and many horses were killed.
Lee Thompson made great use of the Argentine pampas standing in for the Ukraine steppes and one does get a feel for the Cossack love of the land the freedom of the wide open spaces.
Another reviewer says Tony Curtis declared once that when he and co-star Kristine Kaufmann got mixed up during the filming he was already divorced of Janet Leigh; I don't know about that but I can assure you that Leigh came to Salta with him (a friend of mine has a photo with her on the "cerros").
As to the picture, I really enjoyed it -also because I lived in Salta a couple of years and the landscape is very familiar to me- but I think a real classical epic could have come out of Nicolai Gogol's famous novel with a more elaborated script (as a reviewer correctly stated here).J. Lee Thompson's product seems sort of "cheap" and lacks spectacle (except for some real good battle scenes) although I admit if has some very good moments.
A somehow impressive one is when the big doors of the sieged city open slowly and André (Curtis) appears in a frontal close shot wearing a Polish armor and helmet for he will make a run for food too feed the starving citizens inside in a clear treason to his country and father for the love of a woman.
German actress Kristine Kauffman shows her beauty.All in all "Taras Bulba" comes out as an entertaining and amusing film in its genre and a decent intent on Gogol's book, but no much more than that..
That this classic novel by Gogol about the legendary Ukrainian cossack hero could have been made into a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster, and that this was done at the very height of the cold war seems unbelievable today.While the film is dated a bit by the kitschy love story involving Tony Curtis' character, Yul Brynner is perfect in his role which seems one of those he was born to play.A colourful and spectacular historical epic in the best of the then-dying old Hollywood tradition, this is probably the only exposure that the American public at large has to Ukrainian history, and in this alone it is a valuable work.
Taras Bulba is the story of the Cossack's fight for freedom, a fight to reclaim their beloved land from the Poles.
Those alone deserve a 10.The story of Taras Bulba had the potential to be a great historical epic had it focused on Taras' struggle between his love for the Cossack way of life and that for his son.
Unfortunately, given the box office requirements of the time, the studio execs decided to toss in a cheesy love story (complete with fuzzy close-ups) and Tony Curtis, with his matinée-idol hairdo untouched.
However, one can only wonder how great a film "Taras Bulba" would have been if directed by, say, David Lean and the love story expanded.
Curtis' well publicized adulterous affair with actress Christine Kaufman certainly didn't help box office; and, it seems the screen careers of both Curtis and Yul Brynner were permanently damaged, as both went into decline after "Taras Bulba".
I say this, seeing only the full screen version, since it is clear from what remains there was plenty to fill the screen, while key action was wisely staged center screen.Curtis is effective in the difficult role of Andre, Taras Bulba's son.
It stars Yul Brynner, Tony Curtis, Christine Kaufmann and Perry Lopez.
Out of United Artists, it's a DeLuxe/Eastman Color/Panavision production, with the music scored by Franz Waxman and cinematography by Joseph MacDonald.Loosely based on Gogol's short novel, story tells of a Cossack uprising against the Polish forces who have taken control of the Ukraine.
At the centre of the Cossack army is the leader Taras (Brynner) and his two sons, Andrei (Curtis) and Ostap (Lopez).
But when Andrei falls in love with a Polish princess called Natalia (Kaufmann), it sets the wheels in motion for the Bulba family to crack from within; just as the Polish come calling asking for the Cossacks help to defeat the Turkish.While not as epic as the film, the troubled back story of the production is big enough to lend one to understand why Taras Bulba is not the grandiose picture the story deserves.
Thus rendering Brynner's title character to playing second fiddle, so much so they really should have called the film Andrei Bulba instead.
Curtis would say it wasn't the final straw, but with him going on to marry Kaufman shortly after his divorce, it's hard not to think that it sealed the deal!He's not helped by the writers, though, who allow the love story sub-plot between Andrei and Natalia to form the core of the plot.
A shame because what we do get of Brynner is wonderfully exuberant, muscular and (correctly) scene stealing.However, when Taras Bulba as a film is good, it's real good, and thankfully it's never dull, even if it's it a bit more jovial in the mid section than it is meant to be.
My favorite part of the movie was when young Andrij Bulba asks his father Taras Bulba why the Ukrainian Cossacks did not wear armor like the Poles.
Impressive battles and loving intrigue with a sensational duo : Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis.
Taras Bulba (Yul Brynner) sends his sons (originally was hired Burt Lancaster but role subsequently was to Tony Curtis and Perry Lopez) to a Polish school .
There they encounter hatred , confrontation , struggles but also love when Curtis is enamored with the daughter (Austrian actress Christine Kauffman , she met Tony Curtis on the set and later married him) of a Polish nobleman .The film gets noisy action , adventures , romance , jarring burst of violence and results to be quite entertaining .
In my opinion this epic film of Taras Bulba is a bit vulgar and not reflecting well the differences between slav people (Poles were slavs too).
That really set the girl friend off with accusations of sexism.In fact this movie and "The Vikings" finally inspired us to stage a "barbarian party," a riotous success which is still legend with our friends, I won't go into the details but it was great, everyone in costume, food and drinking horns filled with beer flying about, etc.But back to the film.
In contrast the film could actually be a case study in how Hollywood can turn an epic book into smush, and then lure kids into seeing it with a great trailer of a bunch of guys riding around.And definitely do not miss Yul singing the "Cossack song," absolutely hysterical.
Taras Bulba, a loose version of the Gogol short story, is a strange film.
At the time the film was made the real Polish people had suffered horrifying cruelty during WWII at the hands of the Cossacks and their Russian masters, and Poland was being absorbed into the Soviet sphere loosing their freedom for the next half century.
It's sad to give a thumbs-down review to a movie that features the late, and missed, Yul Brynner, but hey – I'm a Cossack, and I skewer babies for lunch."Taras Bulba" offers two attractions: exhibitions of burly Cossack manhood, and hatred of Poles.
Cossacks wrestle with their dads, kill their loved ones, trample their hetmans, ignore their wives, orgy with Gypsies, vault on extemporized trampolines, and thunder across the steppes in carefully choreographed ballet that would make Busby Berkeley's heart beat like those prancing horse's hooves and his eyes well up with envy and admiration.With all of that, how can this movie suck so bad, and be such a painful, boring slog to sit through?
In what conceivable alternate world is it possible that Yul Brynner is the biological father of Tony Curtis?
These two are not related; on screen they clash as if colliding while walking home from the sets of two different films.Movies can do hate in gripping, even if morally bankrupt ways; we've known that since "Birth of a Nation." But "Taras Bulba"'s hatred of Poles is laughable.
This is such an enjoyable,and fun movie,that I add this review not in a spirit of criticism,but,rather,as a note of how it could have been  even better.The reviewer from Salzburg,Austria mentioned that there were a number of points that could have been drawn out of the script.I am in agreement with that person,and wish to discuss the fact that,with a more developed screenplay,a B level swashbuckler could have achieved the status of "Lawrence of Arabia"or "Fall of the Roman Empire."  1.)First,we need to have some scenes indicating that the Cossacks(Ukrainians)are quite leery of the Poles,viewing them as a colonial ,imperialistic power.
2.)Next,a scene would have helped where Mykola,reluctantly agrees to ally the Cossack forces with the Polish army.Taras should have been adamantly opposed,and Filipenko could have revealed,much earlier,his venal,greedy,mercenary character.In this fashion,when Mykola blamed himself AFTER the rout,he would have been seen as a truly fallen leader.AND,when,years later,he decides to ally the Cossacks again with the Poles,he could have been shown as a leader demonstrating a lack of good judgement who was  willing to become ethically compromised.That way,Taras' usurpation of the role of hetman would have been more believable.
This could have been a movie filling in our knowledge gap about Russian history, particularly the origins of the Cossacks but it became a love story..
What could have been a national epic was sidelined into a corny love story between the son of Bulba (played by Tony Curtis) and a Polish princess (Kristine Kauffman).Romance between Kauffman, the 17-year old rising starlet, and the very much married Tony Curtis (to Janet Leigh) was grist for the movie fanzines at the time.
But although the film is called "Taras Bulba", it's actually son Bulba, who's playing the main character here (portrayed by Tony Curtis).I had the opportunity to watch the movie in a (blow-up) 70mm copy.
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.
Released in 1962 a week after Lawrence Of Arabia, Taras Bulba, was not a thinking man's epic like Lawrence or any of the other epics of the time, such as Ben-Hur, Spartacus, El Cid, King Of Kings – it was more of a grand adventure yarn and critics and audiences of the time were just not that interested, despite the film having two big stars in Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis, and a director, J.
What Taras Bulba did have was an absolutely brilliant score by the great Franz Waxman.For me the Best Sequence in the film is the Ride to Dubno where the various Cossack legions meet up with each other in long extended gallop march sequence.This film is largely overlooked now despite some broadcasts on TCM where I had the privilege of seeing it for the first time.
The subplot love story between Andrei (Tony Curtis) and Christine Kaufmann is uninspired to say the least.
The one interesting fact to note is that Tony Curtis married Christine Kaufmann after meeting her on this film..
Borrowing from Gogol the title ,the proper nouns and the son's killing,Jack Lee Thompson's movie is quite entertaining,ideal for a rainy day or after a hard day's work.The first part is the most interesting: the scenes at the university with its sadistic monks -while one of them is flogging the rebel students,the other kneels down and pray- and its "racism" : a lot of Pole Students cannot accept the fact that those primitive savage cossacks study in their school.Curtis was almost emasculated "to prevent him from sullying Pole girls." It sometimes recalls"Romeo and Juliette",which Christine Kaufman's resemblance with Olivia Hussey who would play the part of Juliette six years later reinforces.Yul Brynner is ideally cast as Taras.The 1936 French version ("Tarass Boulba" French spelling)mainly deals with the second part -the siege- and the stories are similar with the same love interest..
Yul Brynner IS Taras Bulba!
Saw 'Taras Bulba' because of the excellent source material, a potentially compelling story and due to liking enough of Yul Brynner's work (especially 'The King and I').
because the purpose is clear - enjoy the film, admire the costumes and the fights, be part of story , near the anger of father or the foolish love of the son.
sure, Yul Brynner is not exactly Taras Bulba .
It's a sword and sandals movie about the Cossacks in the Baltic War, and stars Yul Brynner in the role that he was quite literally "born to play" (being Russian-born).
Unfortunately, Tony Curtis (as Brynner's son) hogs most of the scenes, and the battles are too brief.
While I admire Yul Brynner as Bulba, as well as those breathtaking battle scenes, I must say some idiotic historical inaccuracies in this movie took out a bit of fun while watching it.1st of all, costumes.
To my dying day, I will never forget those scenes of thousands of Cossacks (no CGI...it hadn't been invented yet...there really were 1,000's of actors on horseback!) charging at full gallop, brandishing cavalry sabers & yelling "ZAPAROSTI!" at the top of their lungs.Tony Curtis would not have been my first choice to cast as the son of a Cossack Chieftain (a fine actor but way too skinny).
The scene in which Taras must kill his own son for betraying the Cossack Brotherhood to the enemy over the love of a woman is one of the most powerful and sobering on film.
When one of the drunken Cossacks calls Curtis' character "a coward", precipitating a deadly horse race across a huge crevasse that means certain death to one of them, Brynner's wife begs Taras to call off the contest, saying "It was only a word!" Brynner calmly (and a bit sadly) replies, "Some words are worth dying over."All in all, I rate this film 9 out of 10.
If it has one flaw, it would be expecting the audience to believe that a wimpy little guy like Tony Curtis could successfully compete in a contest of strength with someone as muscular & solidly built as Yul Brynner.
What hurts is the focus on Curtis over Brynner and the cuts that were made in order to whittle this gigantic story down to a movie that could play three times an evening.
The other Cossacks served pretty interesting roles as Ousted Leader dying ignobly, stupid Outspoken, Drunken Partygoer dying for bravura without a single scream as his life ended, and Woman Who Stands By Her Man (Mrs. Bulba) not dying, though maybe she wanted to after learning her husband killed her son.Finally, I liked the horsemanship most in this movie, The scenes of gathering clans resonated, I found no fault with the castle backdrop (matte work?
While the film has plenty of lively set pieces, stirring music by Franz Waxman, an enjoyable performance by Yul Brynner, and epic widescreen cinematography by Joe MacDonald, it falls short in a handful of other departments.
And, apart from Brynner as the titular character, too many of the actors are guilty of over-exaggerated performances.The Ukrainian Cossacks, led by the talismanic Taras Bulba (Yul Brynner), fight a battle against Turk invaders.
He eventually decides to send his two sons  Andrei (Tony Curtis) and Ostap (Perry Lopez)  to a Polish university, where it is intended that they learn all there is to know about the ways and customs of their enemy.
Later, when his son's split loyalties become clear, Taras Bulba also finds himself torn between his love for his son and his need to lead the Cossacks against the Poles."Taras Bulba" is a film that sounds great when described, but the actual article doesn't quite live up to its potential.
"Taras Bulba" is ten times more effective when concentrating on spectacular action and epic-scale battles.
Curtis as Brynner's COSSACK son?
It's hard to resist this headlong story of Zaparoshki cossack Taras Bulba, Yul Brynner, and his son Andry, Tony Curtis, set in the 1600s.
Essentially, the plot is that Taras Bulba hates the Poles and is always ready to revolt and fight them, but Curtis falls in love with a Polish princess while studying in Kiev.
To keep Kaufmann from being burned at the stake, Curtis helps the Poles and is executed by Taras Bulba, his own father.This is the kind of movie that's usually called "epic." They must have used a thousand extras in scenes of hordes of horsemen sweeping across the Russian steppes.
If they were to make a modern movie of Gogol's story (and they have, just this year), I don't think Tony Curtis or anyone like him would be chosen to play Andry.
In fact, Curtis was just five years younger than Yul Brynner who played his father, the eponymous Cossack rebel of the Ukrainian steppes.