Big Gay Longcat's Big Gay Longblog: War and Peace

In 1956 the Americans made a film version of War & Peace starring Audrey Hepburn as Natasha Rostova. This was shown in the Soviet Union in 1959, and though it was immensely popular, they also hated all the changes and omissions that Hollywood had made. So early on in the '60s it was decided to make a Russian version that would be better, longer and more faithful to the book than the American version. So much longer, in fact, that they decided it had to be split into four parts, with each part being long enough to be worthy of a film in its own right.

Part One: Andrei Bolkonsky (1966)

With Cold War pride on the line, virtually unlimited assistance was promised by the Soviet government and so the budget is estmated to have been the equivalent of (adjusted for inflation) $1 billion. This is most obviously to be seen on screen in the battle scenes, which are frankly ridiculously massive in scope and involved the use of Russsian army conscripts as extras. But the sets and costumes even in the peacetime sections are also detailed beyond belief, and all the balls, banquets and salons filled with extras.

Not being an aficionado of Russian cinema, I don't know any of the main cast from having seen them elsewhere, so only two are worth calling out - in the casting of Ludmila Savelyeva as Natasha Rostova the Russians seem to be trying to out-Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn. Or as Chekov might say: 'Audrey Hepburn was invented in Russia.'

Then there's the main character of the story, Pierre Bezukhov - easily one of the most famous characters in Russian literature, his part must have been heavily sought after by all the leading Soviet actors of the day (this is the character that Anthony Hopkins went on to play in the BBC TV version). So how did the director cut through the dilemma of who to cast? Simples. He cast himself.

At just under two and a half hours, part one is the longest of the four films (which add up to being over 7 hours in length). It is perhaps subtitled "Andrei Bolkonsky" because Prince Andrei (or "Prince Andrew" as he is unfortunately called in some English translations) arguably undergoes the most emotional development of all the main characters in this early section of the story. The son of a war hero and general, he joins the army when war (clang!) is declared against Napoleon's France because it is what is expected of him, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Being of the nobility, he is immediately made a senior officer and put on the general's staff. In the battle of Austerlitz Andrei is wounded and there is a famous scene where he lies on the battlefield gazing up at the sky, and realises there is more to life than the petty ambitions of mannys, all the while unaware that Napoleon himself is passing within a few feet of where he lies.

It's quite hard to judge each part on its own. In terms of spectacle - alas we live in the age of CGI, where such epic battle scenes could be created for a fraction of the cost (and by that I even mean good looking CGI, not your crappy Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V cheap job), so I expect this loses a lot of the effect it would have had in the '60s, when it really would have shown up ~~the BBC~~ the Americans. In terms of plot, you need to see more than just part one since a lot of the disparate plot threads are nowhere near ready to come together yet. In terms of emotional impact, this comes nearest to the book of any of the adaptations I have seen (i.e. both BBC versions) - which I would expect of oh those Russians.

Part Two: Natasha Rostova (1966)

The second part of the story is set in the peace (clang!) in between Russia's two wars with Napoleon's France. It focuses on the character of Natasha Rostova, hence its subtitle.

Arguably less epic than the first part due to the lack of battles, this part's centrepiece is the grand ball where young Natasha and Prince Andrei fall in love. This scene is in its own way as impressive as the battle sequences, with a cast of thousands all in period-appropriate costumes in attendance. It certainly puts the low budget 1970s BBC version to shame, and even the more impressive second attempt from 2016 (where the ball was a spectacular centrepiece) can't compete with this cinematic grandeur.

Andrei and Natasha get engaged, but his father won't allow him to marry until a year has passed. Much of the film is then spent on the things Natasha and her family do during this year, such as travelling into the countryside to go on a wolf hunt, and enjoying other quintessentially Russian, rustic entertainments. These scenes are thematically important elements of the book but hardly essential to the main plot, so it does somewhat feel as though the film is being forced to spin its wheels a bit.

Upon returning to the city Natasha attends the opera, where she is seduced by the dastardly Anatole Kuragin (whom Colin Baker played in the BBC '72 version). Natasha acts so irrationally and so emotionally in this bit that it is very tricky to empathise with her, although it is somewhat more understandable when he looks like this:

Purr.

Although Anatole and Natasha are prevented from eloping together, in a scene which is oddly quite rushed considering how long and slow many of the earlier scenes were allowed to be, Andrei finds out and feels betrayed enough to call off the engagement. This creates something of a cliffhanger ending for part two.

Part Three: The Year 1812 (1967)

The shortest of the four parts at a mere 1 hour and 21 minutes. This part is pure spectacle, with over 50 minutes of the runtime dedicated to the battle of Borodino. Scene after scene of vast numbers of soldiers, horses, explosions and smoke are presented to the viewer, the cumulative effect of which is to numb us into accepting that we're not seeing a phenomenally expensive film production, but the actual historical battle which actually happened.

So successful is this that we even accept the absurd sight of Pierre Bezukhov wandering through the battle as a civilian in his ~~suit and tie~~ posh clothes and white top hat. If mishandled this could have been unintentionally comedic, but it succeeds because the surrounding grandeur - and the detail of the reconstruction - forces the viewer to think 'yes, this could have happened: I can see it.'

The resumption of war against Napoleon's France, and the invasion of Russian soil by his armies, forces the peacetime plotlines of part two to go on hold for much of the duration. The only subplot of note that there is room for aside from the war concerns the death of Prince Andrei's father, which he learns about just before the battle begins and the news of which contributes to Andrei's acceptance of the inevitability of his own death.

At the end we witness the wounded Andrei meeting the even more badly wounded Anatole (a scene which the '70s BBC adaptation, sadly, only described happening off-screen) and reconciling before Anatole's death. This sudden reintrusion of the plot from part two might seem unexpected to a viewer unfamiliar with the novel, since there is no foreshadowing of this twist within part three itself, but it is at least faithful to the original story.

If there is a weakness to this incredible piece of filmmaking, it has to be the very ending, where a voiceover about the consequences of the battle seems to have been added to give some sort of closure and a futile attempt to make the film stand on its own. But it really doesn't - you need to have seen the earlier parts to understand the significance of the non-battle scenes, and you need to see part four to get any kind of resolution to the various plot strands - both the war ones and the peace ones.

Part Four: Pierre Bezukhov (1967)

Despite not containing any big battle sequences on the scale of those in the first and third parts, the final instalment of the film series manages to feel even more epic thanks to the scenes set around the French occupation, looting and burning of Moscow, which takes up the first third of the 1 hour 36 minute duration. It looks like a similarly enormous number of extras were used as in the battles, and the director again uses overhead tracking shots to put across the epic scale of the event in a similar way, but this time with the addition of loads of things being on fire.

As main characters begin to get killed off, the direction becomes more experimental, with Prince Andrei experiencing an extended surrealistic dream sequence that is like something out of Excalibur, while scenes focusing on Petya Rostov (a character who, if this were a conventional war movie, would have you shouting "Dead!" at the screen, Mary Whitehouse Experience-style) go into black & white.

It is curious to think that only the first film would even approach the length of most modern films, since the other three are all under 100 minutes each, so there would be no way they would need to split it into four sections if it had been made in the 21st century.

They also wouldn't have needed to abridge the novel so much, since even at the combined length of 7 hours the ending still feels rushed, without the proper conclusion to Pierre and Natasha's story (it is sort of left for the viewer to fill in the blanks, perhaps presuming familiarity with the original story) and even omits some of the more significant subplots such as Nikolai and Maria's romance. Why, if they made it now they could even get Peter Jackson to add some extra subplots!

I felt that, sadly, the badly paced ending was the weakest part of any of the four films (the '70s BBC version didn't exactly stick the landing either). But the journey to get there was worth it - a unique cinematic experience, not to be equalled in scope and scale until the age of CGI made faking it possible, and never, I expect, to be surpassed.