the film as well as the high production budget. Tom Shales of The Washington Post praised the "impressive aspects" and "powerful scenes" of the film while Lon Grahnke labelled it a "formidable epic". Lee Winfrey of Inquirer TV compliments the film for its "textbook examples of how to do drama". The film's cinematography was also praised. Vilmos Zsigmond's camera work was singled out for special mention. He matched his color scheme to the characters' feelings about life, initially showing colorful images meant to illustrate the "very happy and optimistic" hopes after the revolution. However, as the film progresses, the color choices diminish, leaving only black and white at the end. This was recognized as "lavish" and "beautifully filmed" and "magnificently staged". The film was also said to have a "very good" color scheme. This would be primarily due to the exterior shots, which offer the film a "look, fullness, unpredictability" and "sense of authenticity" The film's "unpredictability" is also a factor, along with Syrewicz's turbulent composition, which is at times overwhelming. Duvall's performance of Stalin was subjected to criticism. Although a variety of different situations, such as singing, dancing and joking were shown, some felt that Duvall remained "invisible under the mask". Opinions differed as to whether Duvall's acting was hampered by the mask because he could only move his eyes or whether, despite the "expressionless face" and his "mysterious and inscrutable" acting, "no one ever portrayed Stalin more convincingly and forcefully than Duvall". The mask in particular seemed to have an impact on the acting, as there were no spontaneous actions and any moment of hilarity can turn into dead silence. Duvall could only do this due to the mask, which created an "illusion of threat". For others however, the illusion was not present; Sun Sentinel's Scott Hettrick suggests that a major problem with the film is that "once you see Robert Duvall, you see Robert Duvall. But when you see Maximilian Schell, you see Lenin and only realize very late that it is Schell”. The focus on Stalin's personal life has been considered by some to be the film's "greatest strength and at the same time its main weakness". Almost all film critics took up the "lack of historical context" as the greatest point of criticism. While it was not possible to present Stalin's story in a three-hour film, which would require a "long mini-series to capture Stalin