La guerra y la paz

Bondarchuk brings Tolstoy's enormous literary work to the screen with all the scope and pomposity that the Soviet film industry could muster in the sixties. It's a long, two-part movie that tries to give moviegoers as much of an experience as readers often get from the novel. It's generally successful in a clinical way. The production design and set pieces are delivered on a massive scale, with battle scenes that are basically re-enactments of history. There's enough creative casting to make most of the characters come alive, although much of the drama is wooden and stagey (just as in the book, I might add). All in all, this is probably the biggest visual spectacle ever put on film, even in the age of CGI (a fact which only makes the viewer more appreciative of the logistics involved in setting up a production as big as this). A colossal epic that gives true meaning to the term "years in the making with a cast of thousands!". Image/Rusico is presenting a definitive DVD version in the Sovscope widescreen ratio with the original 70mm six-track magoptical sound on four discs. That's around 7 hours of subtitles for those inclined to see this spectacle in it's purest form.

When you see the movie that adapts your favorite work of literature you have high expectations. You have a picture of the scenes, locations and characters in your mind, and hardly ever a movie comes close to those images. Likewise, I found the 1954 movie War and Peace very disappointing. I was prepared for a similar experience before I saw the two-part movie by Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk. And was surprised. Still, the seven hours' version still omits many facets (including the almost satirical epilogue) of the original 1600 pages work of Leo Tolstoy. But never before lived a movie up to the images of my mind like this one. The actors, the locations, must have been picked very carefully, because they are very close to how they are depicted in the book. In more than one instance I had the feeling that my imagination had been brought to the screen. But it isn't the faithful rendition of the material alone that makes this movie so unique and wonderful. The broad scope of emotions, the grand scale of the aristocracy's parties with all their luxury, the battles with tens of thousands of extras, the impressive burning of Moscow, the actors who don't act but live the plot, it all adds to the wonderful experience of this film. This movie is highly recommended to any true lover of Tolstoy's book, who is interested in Napoleonic history or simply anyone who likes deep, moving, impressive movies. For anyone interested in Napoleonic history, I also highly recommend Bondarchuk's Waterloo, from 1969/70.

I have never read Tolstoy's novel, but I have seen several screen adaptations of it. This version far outshined the others, and it stands alone as one of the greatest films I have ever seen. It is filmed with a rich sort of beauty; it is very visually pleasing. Colors are bold and contrast is sometimes sharp. The camera lens sweeps forward, spins on its side, and waltzes along with the path of the characters. It is a very human portrayal. The camera is not a static periscope, but more like spying through the vision of a real person. Although it is quite a long movie, it never fails to keep my attention.

I remember seeing this film without a break back in the 1970s in Greenwich Village. It's a grand work of art. The movie started around 9pm and ended 5:00 am. It was snowing outside. I felt we had all lived through the War with Napoleon, seeing Natasha grow (the movie took so long to make that the young actress visibly grew before our eyes), and confronting the issues of war and peace.

It was in Russian with English subtitles. That was better than the TV version some years later that was overdubbed. The feeling of the actors didn't come through in that broadcast.

The music was extraordinary. There was a certain waltz that intrigued me. Saw the other War and Peace with Audrey Hepburn that just could not compare to it. It was too lame.

Nothing in film today can compare to those battle scenes. Nowadays, such scenes are too computerized.

Do not watch the US video release, it's a disgrace; a bit like cutting off a bird's wings and forcing it to bark like a dog. The original is breathless in scope and profoundly moving - it is in four parts and runs close to seven hours, and there are good reasons for its length as any can guess who have read the book. If only someone had the conviction and decency to prevent this kind of mangling. I wonder how Tolstoy would have felt if they had told him 'War and Peace', the 'US version', would only be published as cliffnotes.