The best film ever made, ESPECIALLY when taking into account all the logistics - the Soviet Government as a film studio?? (sort of makes sense, after you picture Leonid Brezhnev as Louis B. Mayer), and the world's most infamous LONG novel turned into a megamotion picture.
It probably hasn't been seen in the US on a broad scale since ABC had the good sense to run it as a four part late-night special in early 1973 (anyone else remember)?
Not even subtitles - for those of us who are not true foreign film buffs, I mean - can hurt this film. Bondarchuk's amazing direction, as well as his acting, is breathtaking. The Russian people have been celebrated as lovers of great writing and the subject at hand, "War and Peace", becomes a poem at the conclusion.
Truly magnificent from every level - as a period piece, a psychological drama, a war movie, a love story, a history...Tolstoy would be universally acclaimed ahead of Shakespeare if he (Tolstoy) had the good sense to be from England...
Don't miss it. How the Soviet Government, at the height of the Cold War, could finance and produce a masterpiece like this is one of the great mysteries of the 20th century. Give Bondarchuk the credit.
