Sightlines · reception
How The Red and the White was received
1967 · Miklós Jancsó · The Red and the White on Sightlines
The arc
Commissioned as a Soviet–Hungarian co-production to mark the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, it delivered the opposite of the heroic tribute Moscow wanted and was effectively suppressed in the USSR — while the West hailed it, and it's since become a fixture of greatest-war-film lists and Jancsó's best-known work.
What’s debated
Fans still split over whether its hypnotic, deliberately depersonalised long takes make it a mesmerizing anti-war masterpiece or a cold formal exercise where you can't tell — and aren't meant to tell — anyone apart.
Its footprint
Its ballet-like tracking shots across the steppe became a touchstone of long-take cinema, part of a Jancsó style whose influence cinephiles trace forward to Béla Tarr and beyond.
Where it stands
A 'you must see this' of 1960s Eastern European cinema — the standard gateway to Jancsó alongside The Round-Up, revered by long-take devotees.
Did you know? The film was commissioned to celebrate the 1917 Revolution's 50th anniversary, but the Soviets were so displeased with its unheroic depiction of the Red Army that it was banned in the USSR.