Customer Reviews

War and Peace

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With 10 years in the making, two years of filming and (as a previous reviewer noted) no less than six writers, Tolstoy's epic masterpiece à la Hollywood does get a bit muddled and lost at times, but who cares!?!? The film's cast is stellar. Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer and Henry Fonda were each born to play their respective roles in this monumental film. Fonda plays the quixotic Pierre almost as good as Sergei Bondarchuk does in the more accurate (though also more brutal and heart-wrenching) 1967 Russian version. Hepburn, as the dazzling and ingenuous Natasha is a perfect foil to Mel Ferrer's Prince Andre, who loses his melancholy and determined seriousness only in the presence of Natasha (the same could almost be said of the film!).

Where the Hollywood version is lacking in battle scenes, historic detail, commentary from ordinary Russians and several key character developments (Mary Oblonsky, Nicholas Rostov, the Tsar, Denisov et al), it more than makes up for it with personal performances (above mentioned actors), set and costume design and an overall mood and tone consistent with the book.

This film should not be seen by people who demand faithful and tireless book-to-screen adaptations (the Sergei Bondarchuk version might be a better choice), but by people who want to get a sublime essence of one of the greatest novels ever written.

As a deeply-adoring Audrey Hepburn fan, I have mixed feelings about this movie, as do many Hepburn devotees. It's hard not to wonder what the then-new epic master, David Lean, might have done with it, had he been in charge instead of King Vidor, a giant of the silent era from decades before.

The story I gather from Hepburn biographies is that the producer of this movie shrewdly cast Hepburn's husband, Mel Ferrer, before offering a part to her. Immediately a rival pre-production group shut down their preparations for a "War and Peace" adaptation, knowing that the plum actress for the part would surely not sign with them. (To my knowledge, Lean never got anywhere near either production.)

Well, if that's the case, then "War and Peace" might have been flawed from the start. The domino effect of starting with Ferrer's casting, securing the directorial efforts of a somewhat-aging Vidor, and also having Hepburn to make love to her own husband onscreen, might have meant that something about this movie seems a bit too comfortable for all involved in making it. It's not as dramatic as it needs to be, as cruel in its cruel moments as it needs to be, and therefore not as inspiring and revelatory of what's great about the human spirit when it needs to be. It does -- to my mind -- feel a bit bloated, a bit slow, and never quite at that high-stakes level you might hope.

Indeed, another story about the movie and its "problematic-ness" was told by King Vidor himself in his autobiography. Apparently, at the time of the movie's production or maybe release, his wife had chid him for letting his own, rather fatherly affection for Audrey Hepburn prevent him from letting her play the fullness of Natasha's character -- which is not always a pleasant one in the book. Vidor copped to this accusation, accepting that he had not pushed her as he might have. Tellingly, in the autobiography he went so far (I believe) as to name young Hepburn as his favorite actress to have ever worked with. There is something touching but not quite fortunate in that, because "War and Peace" will never be remembered as a Vidor masterpiece or even a work of the man in his prime. Perhaps it illustrates that, again, this movie was only going to go so far with itself.

Who knows? But my favorite story about this movie shows the intelligence of Hepburn herself. She had asked that Peter Ustinov be cast as Pierre, which to my mind would have been completely perfect casting. Pierre in the book is a bit rotund, a bit clumsy, but also strongly intellectual and bursting with questions about life and society. Ustinov would have been perfect, given the mind and the comic talent he had. (Ustinov also wrote a lovely eulogy upon Audrey Hepburn's death, which is quoted in his book "Still at Large." He thanked her for thinking of him when Pierre needed casting, saying that her choice of him had continued to surprise him throughout his life. He too was a UNICEF representative in his lifetime, and when he passed away, my mourning for him was mixed with thoughts of Hepburn as well.)

But as to the movie ... I will say that there is nothing inept or embarrassing about this adaptation. There are world-class actors in this movie, and if you're waiting for mistakes from them, don't hold your breath. (Henry Fonda, whatever his speaking accent, definitely understood something about Pierre, as did Ferrer about Andrei and certainly Hepburn about Natasha.) You can watch this movie straight through or in sections on DVD, and probably come to like it quite a bit either way. It's gorgeous for Hepburn alone, but also in so many other ways. But once you know the background of the movie, you do risk getting a case of the what-ifs? If you can ignore them, more power to you.

This film is a bit of a mess, but nevertheless very entertaining, mostly because of Audrey Hepburn...her charisma and enthusiasm make up for a lot of the muddled and mixed performances that surround her in this star-studded production of Tolstoy's masterpiece.

Hepburn's then real life husband, Mel Ferrer, does a pretty good job as Prince Andrei and Henry Fonda is Pierre, who despite sounding like "Young Mr. Lincoln", gives a convincing performance, and has several fine scenes. Nino Rota's score is a curious one, as the beautiful Italian-flavored melodies we're accustomed to hear from him are replaced by Russian folk tunes and battlefield music.

Perhaps too many big names and too many writers (6 of them !) made the heart of the book get lost, but this is Audrey's movie, and she's a delight to watch.

I was 16 went I saw the original theatrical release of Paramount's 1956 version of War & Peace. I was enthralled... but then in those days I was enthralled with every wide-screen, stereo sound movie I saw. I even enjoyed Beneath The 12 Mile Reef !!! Since those heady days I have tried to watch this Hollywood version of Tolstoy's epic novel on TV and VHS, but was always panned-and-scaned into numbness. With the Dec. 3rd , 2002, release, after nearly a half-century of missing its left and right sides, this solid, and beautifully mounted film emerges once again in its wide screen glory.

Of course condensing a 1000 page novel into three hours eliminates many of Tolstoy's details, but the basic story remains very much in tact. What is stellar here is the cast. In 1956 Audrey Hepburn was peaking, both as an actress and a beauty. Henry Fonda played a sympathetic Pierre with considerable grace, and Mel Ferrer did admirably with the difficult role of the moody Andrei. Most impressive is Oscar (Mr. Eyebrows) Holmolka as General Katuzov, and Herbert Lom makes a believable brooding Napoleon. You even get Anita Ekberg! Then when you add John Mills, Vittorio Gassman and a number of other accomplished performers, this becomes a film well worth watching. It is also notable because it was the last major directing effort by silent film master, King Vidor.

But hang on! Also in December the eminently preferable, 1968 Sergi Bondarchuk Mosfilm six-hour version of War & Peace also comes out on DVD. Paramount put together a "cast of thousands," but Mosfilm appears to have assembled a "cast of millions" To portray the vast French and Russian forces, Bondarchuk did not need "digital clones" for he had the services of the entire Red Army. In 1956 I was very impressed with Vidor's Battle of Bordino sequence, but compared the action Bondarchuk puts on the screen during the defense of Moscow, it almost seems quaint.

Paramount's version is fine, but wait until Bondarchuk takes you on a ride across the battle field by hitching his camera to a cannonball.

Clark Santee

This is a tough one. In this film adaptation of one of the greatest of the literary classics, one is left wondering whether the magic that one feels comes from the film or is carried over from the novel. For those of us who have read the novel, the artistic license that King Vidal takes is difficult to swallow. Even if we understand that something must inevitably be sacrificed in the distillation of such a massive tome, the abridgement of so much literary genius is troubling. Whole characters, episodes and entire subplots are missing, to say nothing of the larger drama of an ancient and honourable culture teetering on the brink of ruin. As hard as the film tries, it misses this sense of awful grandeur and fails to invoke the overwhelming sweep of history conveyed so well in the novel.

Where it succeeds is in the smaller stories: the lives of the key protagonists, their loves, passions, accomplishments and deaths. We see some admirable performances, especially by Audrey Hepburn as Natasha. She is stunning as a precocious innocent who journeys into womanhood through the brutality of war. Henry Fonda at first seems miscast as a gangly nebbish Peter, until you see him decisively defending Natasha's honour and then confessing his love to her, or clinging to life and hope as a grimly determined prisoner of war. And Mel Ferrer invests his Andrew with what I think is just the right mixture of aloofness, sensitivity, passion and angst. When he first asks Natasha to dance, standing there in his uniform of white and serge, you can understand how Audrey Hepburn fell in love with him in real life. Their scenes together show the tension and tenderness of a real couple, and bring a believable romantic chemistry to the screen. Then there is the splendid cast of supporting actors from Natasha's endearing parents to Andrew's martinet of a father to Herbert Lom's surprisingly complex and sympathetic Napoleon. They don't make character actors like these anymore.

It goes without saying that the plot is magnificent. But this is once again more of a tribute to the novel than the film. Only an idiot could have hashed such a wonderful story.

However, this film is no more about plot than it is about politics. I always felt that Tolstoy's choice of title does his novel an injustice, giving it the air of a political treatise that belies its humanity. War and Peace is only peripherally about either war or peace. While his book does polemicize about war, politics and history, it really only finds its stride when focusing on its ageless themes of hope, love, loss and redemption. And because his characters are constructed so skilfully, we care for them and feel their emotions as if they were our own. To this extent, the film largely succeeds. It is true enough to the heart of the characters that it effectively conveys the novel's essence, even if it doesn't adhere strictly to the novel itself.

It's not perfect. For one thing, it contains irritating affectations that are simply unnecessary. For example, Napoleon is shown directing his army in the midst of the battlefield while reclining and with his legs propped up on a footstool. In fact, Napoleon never showed such contempt for his soldiers and often placed himself dangerously near the front lines astride a white charger as an example of courage and trust in his men. And this movie, like Gone with the Wind, to which it is often compared, commits the sin of glossing over the treatment of its underclass. The front line Russian soldier was a starved, ill-equipped peasant pressed into service and kept from deserting with whippings and the threat of death. The movie focuses on the lives and loves of the nobility to the exclusion of practically all else, and this is one area where the film could have gained by departing from the novel.

This is more than a "period" film and even those who are allergic to such fare might wish to give it a chance. In all, it is a fine film to be admired more for its characterizations than its accuracy. It comes off especially well when compared to its contemporary "epics" like Cleopatra, or Ben Hur, because the characters were created not by Hollywood screenwriters, but by a literary genius, and are thus imbued with an almost Shakespearean presence. However, it will not appeal to people with unbending views about either their literature or their history. Tolstoy's novel subsumed his characters to the larger story of a Russia under siege. This is why he populated the world of his novel with so many people. In this film, Hollywood justifies the presence of its big stars by ignoring the larger canvass to concentrate on the lives of a select few. The result is a film much reduced in scope from the spirit of the novel, but still effective in its diminished way.

This is one of my favorite movies of all time. The acting is superb and the costumes and sets are marvelous. Granted, the script did stray from the book, but I think it was a great adaptation, considering the length of the book and the short length the movie actually had to be. Overall, I would definately recommend this movie if for no other reason than to see Audrey Hepburn in a charming role, as well as the two spectacular performances by Mel Ferrer and Henry Fonda.

This audacious endeavor to bring Leo Tolstoy's brilliant epic novel "War and Peace" to the silver screen deserves kudos. Director King Vidor manages, superbly, to coherently condense the novel's almost 1500 pages into 208 minutes of viewing time. Here he successfully captures the flavor of Russia at war and at peace from 1805, around the time of the Battle of Austerlitz, where Napoleon and his army of the First French Empire engaged the armies of the Russian and Austrian Empires to Napoleon's invasion of Mother Russia, and Moscow itself, in 1812.

The focus is on the social, political, and military upheavals of this period in Russia...with some philosophy thrown in. Co-producers Paramount Pictures, Carlo Ponti, and Dino de Laurentiis apparently spent over six million dollars to make this cinematic extravaganza. The phenomenal battle scenes, directed by Mario Soldati, reflect the cost and the effort as, at times, they appear to be taken from newsreels - in living Technicolor. They are detailed and, frequently, heartrending in nature.

One of the major differences between the book and the movie is that while Tolstoy was able to write, in depth, about the lives of five Russian families - both noble and peasant, fleshing out each character brilliantly, director Vidor has had to concentrate, out of necessity, on just a few representative characters from the aristocratic Rostov and Bolkonsky families and Pierre Bezuhov. Pierre begins life as the natural son of a prince and goes on to become legitimized and made, unexpectedly, the extremely wealthy heir to a title and large fortune when his father dies. The serfs and their historic plight are way underrepresented here, however.

Henry Fonda does a good job in his role as Pierre Bezuhov, probably the central character of both book and film - although he comes across as much more of a Yankee than a Russian or European. Beginning as a somewhat befuddled, carefree outsider - an observer of others with a philosophical nature, he becomes burdened with his newfound responsibilities as a nobleman. He aspires to free his peasants from their lives of drudgery and to improve his many estates, but accomplishes little as he becomes mired down in a marriage with a sophisticated, shallow, immoral women whom he comes to despise. He is an intimate friend of the Rostov family.

Audrey Hepburn is at her best here as Natasha Rostov, an exuberant adolescent who grows into a beautiful, vivacious woman. Hepburn demonstrates her ability to capture a wide range of moods and emotions as Natasha matures and experiences love, joy, profound sorrow and loss.

Mel Ferrer is the proud, somewhat cynical, tragic Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Descended from a military family, his only sense of romance is related to war and heroism. This romanticism does not last as he becomes exposed to the true horrors of the battlefield. While Ferrer is not my idea of a talented actor, he does carry this part off well. Prince Andrei is not called upon to portray a variety of emotions.

Although Vidor's "War and Peace" is far from perfect, I think he does an admirable job of capturing Tolstoy's major themes of family relationships, social and political change as a result of war and as the younger generation comes of age. While much of Tolstoy's spiritual and philosophical thoughts and theories are absent here, "War and Peace" works well as a romantic epic... of Russia before, during and after tremendous upheaval.

This is a colorful and entertaining movie with no pretensions of being profound. And then there's Audrey Hepburn...reason enough to rent the epic production.
JANA

Despite the many draw backs that follow the release of a hollywood movie based on a classic novel, this film is quite exceptional. The cast and their acting alone is something to marvel at, notwithstanding the fantastic wardrob nor the vast amount of effort put into the movie's sole battlescene. The one great fault within this movie is the director's reluctance to remain true to the book. Many important sections of the book that made the novel so great were left out, or slightly manipulated. However, movie lovers and book lovers alike are sure to enjoy this film immensely.

Okay, maybe you need more time than this standard Hollywood blockbuster to do justice to Tolstoy.
But there are bigger problems with this movie than that. Begin with casting-granted, Audrey Hepburn is a very capable Natasha Rostova.
She looks like one imagines the character should, and does show some of the growth the character showed in the novel.
But Henry Fonda as Pierre Bezuhov??!!?? Henry Fonda is Mister Roberts. Henry Fonda is Tom Joad. He is not a somewhat bumbling, philosophical Russian noble.
And Mel Ferrer as Andrei Bolkonsky.... Supposedly he got the job because of his marraige/relationship (can't remember which) with Audrey Hepburn. Bolkonsky is supposed to be a
brave,philosophical (hence Pierre's friend), intelligent, good-looking Russian noble/officer. Ferrer does the good looking part ok. As for the rest, he displays the emotion and intelligence of a rock. So, for two of the three
crucial parts, this movie is stuck with actors either inept or inapt.
But there's also a sort of non-Russian feel to this. For example, Andrei's sister is Princess Maria Bolkonskaya in the BBC and Russian versions. Here she is Mary Bolkonsky. Princess Maria Bolkonskaya
is the Tolstoy character. Mary Bolkonsky is a dockworker's wife in Hoboken, New Jersey. The whole movie has that sort of 50s Hollywood blockbuster feel to it, and you never feel that any attempt to capture the smallest portion
of the novel is really being made. Not that it's awful-it's just blah.
There are two better versions. The best, if you can find it, is the late 60s/early 70s BBC version. Originally shown on Masterpiece Theatre in 12-13 parts (15-18 hours?) and starring a young & brilliant Anthony Hopkins as Pierre
Bezuhov, it is by far the best at making the characters come alive. You understand their motivations and actions almost as well as reading the book. Also, you're given wonderful characterizations of Napoleon, Kutuzov, and other leaders and can really understand the military
campaigns of 1805 and 1812. The one downside is that the battles of Austerlitz and Borodino and the burning of Moscow are not nearly the spectacles of the Hollywood version or the much more imposing 60s Russian version of director Sergei Bondarchuk.The battle scenes of this version
may be the most spectacular ever filmed as Bondarchuk was reportedly given tens of thousands of Red Army extras to use. I suppose, with computer graphics, nothing like this will ever happen again. Still, the Russian version, at least to my American eyes, can't match the depth and characterization of the BBC's version.
So, in my humble opinion:

1) BBC 70s- for depth, story and acting
2) Russian 60s-for grand spectacle
3) Hollywood 50s-for....I don't know...Audrey Hepburn?

This film came out on DVD this month and I rushed to buy it. This version is the first to render all the detail and perfection of Jack Cardiff's a-ma-zing compositions and brilliant, varied photography. As a collection of definitive, memorable images, this film is better than any comparable historical epic of the period and even gives GWTW a run for its money. King Vidor's direction is a series of `tableaux vivants' where the characters are not posing but acting in a very natural, period-specific way. I have never had a problem with this adaptation of Tolstoy's novel. I think it is a wonderful introduction to the period and the novel and that it is a very poetic, very original work in its own right. The most conspicuous handicap of this movie, in my opinion, besides a few rough patches in the generally pristine celluloid - Natasha unevenly shifts from light to dark while waiting for a dancing partner at the ball and she has a hole in her nose at the opera - is its soundtrack (in glorious mono). The barely hi-fi recording of dialogues and music sounds pinched, hollow and tinny and it always has in every version I have ever seen: in the theatres, on TV and on video. Even the soundtrack album is an abomination. As limited as it is, this soundtrack is at least free of static and scratches. In some scenes, however, before the necessary adjustments (With a Dolby 5.1 receiver, try the "Mono Movie" CD setting and amplifying the "surround effects" and subwoofer volume to a maximum), Audrey Hepburn's and Mel Ferrer's voices actually hurt your ear. Nino Rota's very Russian-sounding score is serviceable and melodic, although rather sparse in its orchestration and in the number of players. But maybe that's his hommage to Mozart's simplicity... One can only wonder what `War and Peace' could have sounded like with a cohort of Hollywood arrangers, decent recording facilities and lavish, varied orchestrations in true high fidelity and stereophonic sound. According to Lukas Kendall of `Film Score Monthly', the original recording elements of the soundtrack have long ago disappeared, which is the common lot of international, independent co-productions of the era. Someone somewhere is certainly guilty of skimping on quality or embezzlement for this 1956 movie to sound so much worse than a 1939, pre-hi-fi epic like GWTW. But it's still a masterpiece!