La guerra y la paz

If you can find it, watch it.

Admittedly, the 7 hour plus running time is pretty daunting, but consider the source material. This film deservedly won the best foreign picture Oscar when it was finally released in the U.S. The fact that a Soviet film was able to garner such an award during the height of the Cold War is a testament to its greatness.

There are 3 intermissions to this, the Pangaea of all epic films, and each section draws the viewer in more than the last. The spectacle will blow your mind in a way that digital effects never will be able to do. To actually see the Red Army (and what looks like all of it) marching in costume over the expanse of miles into the distance will change any prior notions of spectacle you held. Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, whatever awed you before is chicken feed compared to the brutal grandeur of Bondarchuk's recreation of The War of 1812.

There are beautiful interludes of excellent acting amidst extremely costly sets--it's a shame I don't know Russian because those subtitles chew up a lot of exquisite scenery. The characters are fully developed, the direction is inspired (no run-of-the-mill static camera work in any of this).

They showed this in 70mm at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood last year. Before that it was 10 years without a screening in the U.S. We can't afford to let this shimmering prize of film history lapse. In a theatre, or if it is ever issued on DVD, this movie will deeply reward all those who watch it. There was nothing as grand as War & Peace before; there will be nothing on its scale ever again. Treasure this masterpiece...if you can find it.

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.

If possible, this is a film to be seen before reading the book! When Count Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace he was at the height of his mental powers. Tolstoy's in-depth understanding of the Russian people is transmitted ably by the director of the film, Sergei Bondarchuk. Bondarchuk's stress on authenticity as manifested in clever cinematography is perhaps unequaled in modern film making.

One has the feeling to be involved in the battle scenes and also the more intimate drawing room sequences.

The foundations of War and Peace are largely to be found in Tolstoy's keen interest in history.

Bondarchuk said, "We have tried to involve the spectator in the events on the screen to make him experience what Tolstoy's characters experienced and the atmosphere in which they lived." This has been done admirably.

Dag Stomberg

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.

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.