|
|
Article: TV Preview; HBO's `Stalin': Superficial Despite Duvall
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- November 21, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
|
Robert Duvall could be giving the performance of his life in
"Stalin," but entombed as he is under all that hair and makeup, how
would anyone know? One has to take it on faith that Duvall is even
in there. He looks like Joseph Stalin, sure, but under those
conditions, so would you.
HBO's film, premiering at 8 tonight, offers Duvall not so much
a vehicle as an albatross. It's a heavy, leaden, ponderous affair
that does little to illuminate the life and times of history's most
notorious communist. The producers see Stalin as a Russian Don
Corleone and the biography is played out in bloodily operatic terms,
almost oblivious to the fact that Stalin's offenses against humanity
were on rather ...