You searched for:

Search for…

Narrow Search

  • Author

  • Rating

  • Show only

Film Search
Sergei Bondarchuk's kitschy, epic 1967 adaptation of the Tolstoy novel is the most expensive movie ever made, and though it can be bombastic and mind-numbing, it's often lively and eye filling. The balls and battle scenes are monumental, and Bondarchuk (who plays the bumbling Pierre, as Orson Welles would have in the 40s if he'd realized his own version with Alexander Korda) moves his camera a lot, incorporating some expressive 60s-style flourishes. Even at 415 minutes (over an hour shorter than the Soviet release) this rarely suggests the vision behind the set pieces or populist polemics; Tolstoy's feeling for incidental detail is more evident in non-Tolstoyan films like The Leopard and The Magnificent Ambersons. This is a landmark in the history of commerce and post-Stalinist Russia, but not cinema. If you'd like to merely sample it, try parts one and three. With Lyudmila Savelyeva (graceful as Natasha), Vyacheslav Tikhonov (suitably morose as Andrei), and more than 100,000 extras. In Russian and French with subtitles. By Jonathan Rosenbaum

Sorry there are no showtimes for War and Peace on Monday, May 21.

Reviews/comments (1)
4.2 out of 5

Showing 1-1 of 1

Add a review

Well, I disagree with the dismissive attitude of this notice. It is a film that manages to handle the big set pieces brilliantly and still attend to small behavioral details. Above all, it is persuasive -- you feel that yes, this is how these people lived then, this was their world, these were the questions they wrestled with. Get your hands on the full-length, subtitled, widescreen DVD so that you can hear real Russian voices come out of their throats. It is also blessed with one of the great film scores by someone named Ovchinokov. An cinema experience you'll never forget.

report   
Posted by Jeff Sweet on 11/26/2009 at 9:00 PM
Subscribe to this thread:
By Email
With RSS
Showing 1-1 of 1

Add a review


Roll over stars and click to rate.