War
and Peace
Director: Sergei Bondarchuk
Distributed by: Continental Distributing
Released: March 1966 to November 1967 (in four parts)
Country: U.S.S.R.
About a year and a half ago, I first
considered reading Tolstoy’s 1869 mammoth 1,200 page novel War and Peace. I was warned by a literature-major friend of
mine to stay away, that the juice was not worth the squeeze, as it were. Well, nobody tells the purveyor of My BFF Project what he can't do; I considered the gauntlet summarily
thrown down. Off to the library I went, full of vim and vigor, checked out the book and got started. And twenty-six renewals later, I'm hoping to finish that monstrosity sometime during the current calendar
year.
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| Sergei Bondarchuk as Pierre |
Not to be outdone by Tolstoy, Soviet
writer-director-actor Sergei Bondarchuk took it upon himself to a make
431-minute adaptation of the most famous Russian story—yes, that’s right, this “movie” clocks in at 7 hours and
19 minutes. But in fairness, this is
more like a mini-series, released in four parts over a two year period, not
unlike the more recent Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit movies made by Peter
Jackson. And it is every bit the spectacle
those film series were.
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| Natasha |
This is going to sound crazy, but the
film version of War and Peace
actually simplifies the story quite a bit, cutting out most of the innumerable
characters of the book (Tolstoy actually did not consider it a “novel”) and
chopping out a lot of the side-stories. The film is set during the wars between Czarist Russia and Napoleon’s France in
the first part of the 19th century.
There are three central characters as we meet them: Pierre, played by Bondarchuk himself, an
aimless intellectual who loves ideas and discussion, but loves his vodka more;
Andrei, Pierre’s friend, who is a military man who isn’t really into the
military thing anymore, and really isn’t into his pregnant wife anymore; and
Natasha, a high-spirited and charming young girl whose parents aren’t really
good with money and who dreams to marry her Russian Prince Charming some day.
To summarize a seven-hour film in a
review seems pointless, but be assured, there is war and there is peace. Then there is war again, then peace, then
war, then finally (spoiler!), peace. I
will say this: This is one grand epic of a
film, and it takes its time. But Bondarchuk’s pacing may be what I liked about it most. Fairly faithful to Tolstoy, there is humor
and sadness and
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| Andrei |
absurdity and romance, and all these exist in all the main
characters. Pierre, a somewhat comical
figure, becomes a very, very rich man early on in the story, through no fault
of his own, and much of what follows is about his struggle to understand what
he is supposed to do with that wealth. Andrei, a proud and increasingly nihilistic man,
tries to find his life’s purpose, with the help of Pierre, Natasha, and of course,
the war against Napoleon. And Natasha, maybe the story’s most important figure, grows from a spirited life-loving
girl to a serious and selfless woman. I
especially felt the director’s frequent use of the interior monologue was
effective, as we got to understand what each character was thinking and
feeling, at times better than the characters did themselves.
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| 1956 Hollywood version |
Historically, the fact this film was
made when it was is amazing. The Soviet
Union under Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to make a movie that glorified
pre-Soviet Russia, largely in part to counter the success of the
American-Italian version of the story made in 1956, starring Henry Fonda, Mel
Ferrer, and Audrey Hepburn in the leads.
There is much talk of God and religion, in keeping with the philosophical nature of
Tolstoy’s writing (though Tolstoy himself didn't convert to Christianity until sometime after the writing of War and Peace). I suppose it was more
important to the government that it be responsible for the definitive film
version of this Russian novel than it suppress the religious elements of the
film.
No expense was spared in making this movie,
what the Guinness Book of Records has called “the most expensive film ever
made.” The photography is amazing and
the scope of this movie is epic. But I
never felt like there was much unnecessary to the story, and the plots flow well. When I came to the end of the 7 hours and 19
minutes, I said to myself, “Gosh, that didn’t feel like more than 7 hours and
10 minutes, tops.”
The title: Война и мир, or to make it easier on you, Voyna i mir.
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| 2016 BBC/A&E version |
The Culture: The “war” part
concerns Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, mostly, but the story starts sometime
earlier, in 1805, and culminates in Napoleon’s expulsion from Moscow in 1812. The “peace” part looks at Russian aristocracy
through its three main characters, all of whom are on somewhat different social
planes: Pierre is the richest of all of
them, but he’s a bastard and his money is new.
Andrei’s family is well-respected and monied, and though they love each other, communication is not their strong-suit. Natasha’s family is
respectable, but struggles with money.
Culturally, War and Peace gives us a taste of what Russian aristocracy was like during
this period.
Agenda
danger:
The fact that the Soviet Union not only green-lighted, but commissioned
this film is perplexing. There is no
real hint of anti-capitalism or Communist propaganda. Even the Soviet Union’s other Best Foreign
Films, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears and Dersu Uzula, present some oblique critiques of
capitalist thinking; War and Peace sticks to the spirit of the novel, which
really doesn’t contain a hint of Communistic thought.
Best Picture
that year:
Oliver! That's the title; it's not as though I am extra-enthusiastic to name this one. Because I'm not.
Rating: I’m not sure
how many of you would have the time or patience for a 7 hour 19 minute film,
but people binge watch stuff like The Walking Dead, so why not give it a
try? I also very much liked the BBC-One/A&E
mini-series from 2016. That version
focused on more characters and is much more upbeat and more “Hollywood.” But the mini-series is also faithful to the
book, and you can bang that version out in just under six hours.
The book takes longer.
