On the night the Emmys awarded "Anne Frank" the best miniseries of 2000-2001, NBC began airing yet another WWII-era epic which has to be the odds-on favorite for the trophy next year. This is as fine a miniseries as I have ever seen. David Schwimmer, Leelee Sobieski and Hank Azaria are all highly believable in their roles as Jewish resistance fighters. Donald Sutherland and Jon Voight turn in fine performances in lesser roles. And director Jon Avnet delivers a compact, credible piece of little-known history regarding the Warsaw ghetto uprising. For a small screen effort, one has to be amazed at how closely the style resembles that of big screen efforts like "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List". All in all, a well-done miniseries that deserves a second viewing. How often can one say that about any miniseries.
Uprising
2001
Action / Drama / War
Uprising
2001
Action / Drama / War
Plot summary
Using radically refashioned archival footage of the Warsaw ghetto, this interview with Jon Avnet the director of Uprising talks about Marek Edelman who is an evocative memoir of his role in the rebellion that held back the Nazis for almost a month in 1943. The film begins with the growing list of prohibitions and regulations leading to the virtual imprisonment of about half-a-million Polish Jews in an old slum district of Warsaw with inadequate space and plumbing. An overhead tracking shot shows the number of people assembled in the first months of the relocation. The daily struggle against hunger and disease, especially among the dispossessed arrivals seen in their pitful rags, is aggravated by the German demands for "deportations to the east" that many begin to suspect are camouflaged mass murders. By the close of 1942, people living in the ghetto realize they are doomed, and the rudiments of resistance are planned by a handful of the young, including Edelman. Following some sporadic, spontaneous fighting at the ghetto railhead, the Umschlagplatz, in January, led by Moredecai Anielewicz, the scene is set for the more famous and prolonged battle that will begin on 19 April 1943. In the intervening time, many of the ghetto residents construct hidden shelters or bunkers in the basements and cellars of the buildings, often with tunnels leading to other buildings. The handful of fighters who have weapons take to these shelters, giving the uprising the advantage of defensive positions.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Riveting Historical Drama
good production for a network TV mini-series
Poland surrenders to Germany in 1939. Jews are forced into the Warsaw ghetto. Adam Czerniakow (Donald Sutherland) is the head of the Jewish counsel and Kazik Rotem (Stephen Moyer) is his driver. Tosia Altman (Leelee Sobieski) is able to pass for Aryan and sneaks out to trade for food. Mordechai Anielewicz (Hank Azaria) fails to escape to Palestine and decides to stay for the fight. Yitzhak Zuckerman (David Schwimmer) is his best friend and Zivia Lubetkin (Sadie Frost) is his girlfriend. Calel Wasser is a Jewish policeman in the ghetto. Czerniakow struggles to save lives in the impossible position and Anielewicz berates him for co-operating. As Jews are deported to Treblinka, Czerniakow commits suicide and Anielewicz organizes the resistance. Dr. Fritz Hippler (Cary Elwes) is a German propagandist who made "The Eternal Jew". Major-General Jurgen Stroop (Jon Voight) takes over the operation to clear out the ghetto.
This is quite a production for network TV. It's very high quality. There are a couple of questionable scenes where accuracy is concerned. There are some top-notched actors led by the great Donald Sutherland. I could probably do without Schwimmer. Still, it's great for what it is.
Wake me when it's over.
"Uprising" tells an interminably long tale of a bunch of Jewish WWII freedom fighters in Poland's Warsaw Ghetto who managed to become a thorn in the side of the German occupation forces. By the numbers and looking every bit like the budget-conscious t.v. flick it is, "Uprising" is flat, stagey, manipulative, uninspired, and almost 3 hours long. Little more than a lot of semihistorical busyness, contrived suspenseful moments, stereotypical sneering Germans soldiers brutalizing the helpless Jew with the usual assortment of naked corpses scattered about, this flick is a failed attempt at tweaking history for the sake of entertainment. Nonetheless, the film may have some value for people young enough to have not yet had their fill of holocaust films with enough time on their hands to contend with the long run time. (C)