l_rawjalaurence As with most literary adaptations, it is fundamentally pointless to speculate on the extent to which King Vidor's memorable movie either departs from or reproduces the themes and style of Tolstoy's source- text. Film and literature are fundamentally different media and should be treated as such.What is perhaps more suggestive is to look at this version of WAR AND PEACE in its context of production. Napoleon (Herbert Lom) has the desire to invade Russia and hence expand the scope and range of the French Empire, just like Hitler had imagined fifteen years before the film's release. Initial success was followed by ultimate failure, as the Russians, spearheaded in the film by Field Marshal Kutzorov (Oscar Homolka), fight a war of attrition, eschewing direct combat in favor of occasional guerrilla raids. Napoleon cannot understand his opponents' behavior: no one will come to sign an official surrender. Eventually he is forced to withdraw, and his troops have to complete a 3000+ kilometer journey out of Russia while enduring the exigencies of winter. With little or no capacity for resistance, they are easily overrun by Dolokhov (Helmut Dantine) and his forces. Vidor's film offers a powerful denunciation of dictators, who are often so crazed with ambition that they have little or no concern either for military logistics or for the welfare of their forces. Napoloeon, like Hitler, gets what he deserves.Yet WAR AND PEACE is equally critical of the Russian side. Natasha Rostova (Audrey Hepburn) inhabits a bourgeois society where outward show matters: as in many latter-day Austen adaptations, most members of her class spend their time trying to see and be seen at balls. Vidor includes several dance-sequences that might be pretty to look at, but suggest the trivialities of the Russian world; even though the French army are drawing nearer and nearer, no one seems to be taking any notice. Eventually her lover Prince Andrei Bolkonsky (Mel Ferrer) is sent away to the front and discovers the realities of life. Natasha has a brief fling with another man, but comes to discover the realities of life when she and her family are forced to evacuate Moscow to avoid being annihilated.The film contains some spectacular battle-sequences, no more so when the French and Russian forces meet, and Pierre Bezukhov (Henry Fonda) tours the Russian battle-lines and discovers to his cost just how hellish the world of combat can be. Having been taken prisoner by the French, he is marched back to France with the departing forces, where he meets a fellow-prisoner Platon Karataev (John Mills) and discovers a way to survive even in a world seemingly crashing to destruction around him.WAR AND PEACE contains a happy ending of sorts, as Pierre and Natasha reunite after several years apart, but the scene of utter destruction facing them makes it a Pyrrhic happiness. The only way they can survive - as the film reminds us in a title-card taken from Tolstoy's novel - is to love life itself, and accept all that it can throw at us with equanimity. This might have seemed a rather optimistic message during the mid-Fifties, at a time when US-Soviet relations were lukewarm, to say the least, but it still holds sway today.Vidor's film is extremely long, but sustains our attention throughout. Definitely worth watching if time and attention permit.

preppy-3 Mammoth adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's huge novel. I never read the book so I can't say how it compares but, on its own terms, is a good epic movie. It deals with Napoleon (Herbert Lom) and his troops invading Russia and how it affects two families. Let's get the bad things out of the way--at 3 1/2 hours it's far too long (the last half hour really drags); characters and stories are not handled well at all--people come and go very quickly; there's some funny post-dubbing (notice how Audrey Hepburn's voice echoes--when she's outside!); Henry Fonda gives a rare bad performance and notice how almost all the Russians have British accents! But the good vastly outnumbers the bad.It's never really dull and is beautifully filmed in color with incredible sets and costumes. Save for Henry Fonda all the acting is good. Also this has an incredibly attractive cast--Hepburn, May Britt and Anita Ekberg are gorgeous; Mel Ferrer, Jeremy Brett and Vittorio Gassman are VERY handsome. The story moves rather quickly and has quite a few truly epic sequences--an absolutely gorgeous ballroom dance; battles between Russia and France; the mass exodus from Moscow and the long French march out of Russia. It's also fun to see Herbert Lom chew the scenery and there's a beautiful music score. It's really worth seeing for the production values alone. Recommended despite the length.

DQGladstone OF COURSE, I slept through it. It was long and boring and one needed the drug of sleep to endure the stagey direction and acting.Audrey Hepburn was at her beautiful, charming, irritating, over-acting best in this film. It was only her personal charm and loveliness that kept her from making me sick with fakeness.The scene where Pierre tells her he's getting married, her head turns so fast I'm surprised it didn't break her lovely neck. People in real life don't act that way because they'd risk physical injury if they did.Henry: I'm getting married. What's wrong? Audrey: I hope you're happy with your new wife but I just broke my neck.Obviously she was trying to convey the enthusiasm and energy of youth so that we could see the change to her character resulting from war, experience and time but her enthusiasm was stagey and irritating. She was so damn happy to see everyone in this film I'm surprised they didn't smack her.Henry Fonda was less fake but he had his moments, too. At his father's death scene when he falls to one knee, I'm surprised he didn't injure himself. They must have put padding on the floor.Henry: My father..is dead...and my knee...is broken...Many other examples from Ferrer and minor characters.King Vidor apparently never heard of film minimalism.Henry was supposed to be clumsy, I guess, and he bumped into a few walls and tripped over a log but he certainly could have been funnier. He had some charm early on but he missed a lot of opportunities for humor.I found it funny when he stepped forward to be shot without waiting for orders. They could have had a guard put a hand on his elbow to guide him forward then have the commander stop the guard. Instead, Henry moves forward to the firing post of his own volition to be stopped by destiny. Funny.You hear a lot about conflict between actors and directors on the set but Audrey and Henry are good actors and I'm surprised they let this stuff go without saying "Isn't this going to look a little stupid?" I guess Henry really DID need the money.I've never had the energy or time to read the book and I hoped that this film might enlighten me a bit but...I slept through it.If you're tired and want to see a really GOOD movie that encourages sleep, I recommend "2001: A Space Odyssey". It's a beautiful movie but the scenes and visuals are so slow you'd better bring a large cappuccino.

Irie212 That's one of the few good lines, and director Vidor might have written it, as he's one of eight(!) credited screenwriters. Perhaps it occurred to him because he had quite a few excellent excuses himself to explain the mortal sin that is this movie:1. Money: It was co-produced by Paramount and Ponti/Di Laurentiis, so he had not one but two companies looking over his shoulder.2. Location: It's all shot in Italy, which explains the terrible sound editing (Italy didn't film with sound, they added it in post-production) and even worse lip-syncing.3. Acting: The minor roles are mostly filled by worthy British and Italian actors (I except the scenery-chewers, Anita Ekberg and Milly Vitali, especially the latter, whose Lisa Bolkonsky can't die soon enough). As for the leads: All-American Fonda doesn't embarrass himself, but that's the best that can be said. Natasha was a bit beyond Hepburn's range, but she shines anyway. But casting Mel Ferrer as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is catastrophic; Ferrer should have done Hollywood a favor and remained a dialog coach.4. Story: Suffice to say that the legendary scene where Napoleon saves Prince Andrei (one of fiction's greatest characters played by one of cinema's lamest actors) on the battlefield is reduced to a meaningless incident in the plot.5. Music. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Nino Rota. But if ever a film demanded Russian choral music, it's this one.6. Screenplay: The best excuse of all, of course, is that reducing a 1000-page masterpiece of a novel to a 208-minute movie is a hopeless task. But the dialog doesn't have to be as dreadful as this ridiculously juvenile exchange, spoken before a duel to the death: Pierre (gun in hand): "First, tell me how to use this thing." Second: "It's very simple, you cock it, and there's the trigger." Pierre. "Oh, yes, I know, I just forgot."Still, no excuses, however excellent, can entirely vindicate Vidor. I had just finished reading the new translation of the novel, so I gave his epic—well, maybe I should just say "long"—movie a shot when it was on TCM recently. It turns out, a shot would have been the humane thing to do.