War and Peace (1956) Reviews

Since I have a weak spot for Audrey Hepburn and even more for Henry Fonda, I was quite eager to check this flick, even though it was a rather daunting prospect. Indeed, to be perfectly honest, I haven't read the classic book written by Tolstoy but I know it is pretty huge so I knew beforehand that they would try to make a very long epic of this story with this adaptation. I mean, don’t misunderstand me, I do like very long movies but like Roger Ebert used to say, a bad movie can't be short enough and a good movie can't be long enough. In this case, even though I admired the work done, especially how they reproduced the time periode and the cast did a decent work but I seriously had a hard time to care about the story. Basically, it deals with some people belonging to the Russian aristocracy during the war against Napoleon and, to be honest, I thought they were rather dull. Maybe in the book, they were fascinating to follow for 100s of pages but I got rather bored to follow them in their romantic intrigues for more than 3 hours. Anyway, even though it didn’t really blow me away, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

The great, long, unique in literature and screen scene of tha civil man trying to understand war in the middle of the battle, is as wise as epic. ¡Viva Vidor¡ The sense of tragedy and intensity of romantic feelings, of social disdain and regret, everything feels intense. Audrey and Mel are better than the others.