War and Peace

"You're like this horse. You suffer, you show your wounds, but you stand".

I'm always on shaky ground when it comes to big screen adaptations of classic literature, especially if I haven't read the novel in question. Ideally, a film version of War and Peace should be able to present the text in an accessible fashion for those who have never (or would never) read the book, whilst also giving the book's fans a rewarding visualisation of the classic story they already love. This film touches on themes of war, marriage, reputation, glory, pacifism, intellectualism, practicality, gender roles and death... and that's all in the first 20 minutes. At three and a half hours, War and Peace is almost as daunting to watch as it would be to read the massive book. I can't comment at all on whether it captures the full extent of the book's key notes but what I will say is that it is a completely self-contained and accessible film, and I didn't feel like I was missing any information when I watched it.

Pierre (Henry Fonda) is the illegitimate son of a Russian count during the Napoleonic Wars. He takes on our focus as the story's protagonist, but the story is actually about three intertwined upper-class Russian families and the way the war affects them. There's Pierre and his marriage to the parasitic Princess Helene (Anita Ekberg), there's Prince Andrei (Mel Ferrer) and his family - miserable and destined for more misery despite their high standing, and Count Ilya (Barry Jones) and his family - low in reputation but high in happiness. We also glimpse Napoleon (Herbert Lom) himself as he fights a doomed war against Russia. The story unfolds from here in a lot of different ways, it's pointless to write in any real detail about what happens though as it's such a big story. I suppose if I had to sum it up I would say that it's a reflection on the costly triumph of Russia over their French invaders... it's a somewhat depressing chronicle but also about embracing life no matter the tragedies that come, exemplified by the smallest shreds of positivity found by each of the main characters after having gone through so much.

At the outset of the war the characters are all full of optimism, demonstrated by the scene where a soldier stands on a high window sill and drinks a whole bottle of spirits as his friends cheer him on. This display of bravado and recklessness in the name of glory sums up the Russian attitude to the outbreak of war, an attitude that soon sours under the yoke of a brutal and relentless defence campaign (perhaps symbolised by the bleak winter duel that takes away Pierre's innocence).

The course of the war from here is glorious for neither side... Napoleon eventually captures Moscow but Russia is such a miserable place that the victory is completely meaningless. It must be one of the few times in history where a capital city was captured only for the victors to realise it wasn't worth keeping and subsequently leave. The French retreat becomes more arduous than the battles they fought to get there due to the bitter Russian winter and previous use of scorched Earth tactics. The French even end up having to burn their own flags to keep warm.

"Men like Napoleon can never stop 'til their own ambition destroys them. The only important battle is the last"

Such historical events inform Tolstoy's nihilistic view of strategy and warfare... this idea that success in war isn't determined by planning and supposed advantages, and the suggestion that armistices are futile as war inevitably always comes around again. The impact is felt perhaps most keenly by Prince Andrei, who exchanged his wife's love for the glory of war and lives in remorse as a result. In narrative terms, the machinations of Russian high society also shift from being of importance to having no value at all, and Napoleon's romanticisation of war ("That is a good death") becomes similarly hollow, as all that seems to be left by the film's end is suffering and survival.

War and Peace is (as might be expected) epic in scope. King Vidor does a good job of conveying the passage of time without using cheap tricks like montage or cosmetics. Instead the script cues passages of time with dialogue that leads into unseen events - an effective technique that also keeps the film moving along without getting bogged down in every little detail. Even with this in mind, it's a very long film... towards the end there is a sequence that is basically just ten minutes of soldiers marching through desolate Russian woodlands. But it's also quite a pretty film - Vidor films in vivid technicolour, allowing for majestic palettes of carefully selected colours such as the scene where Pierre visits his father's deathbed, with holy golds and deep reds photographed in shadows and candlelight. There's also some nice framing in the shot where Pierre drops a freshly picked daisy whilst he watches a full-scale battle and then curiously wanders down to the cannon line and laughs with the troops.

Unfortunately, with a film of this size and with so many characters, there isn't really much room for anything beyond adequate and satisfactory performances. Fonda is far too old to play the intellectual and awkward Pierre... his flair for playing idealistic heroes and conscientious objectors makes him suited to the character but he lacks the anxiety or naivete of a younger man. The standout of the cast is easily Audrey Hepburn as Natascha, who is magnetic with all her girlish energy and frailty, questioning the role of women in this society and developing to womanhood alongside the progress of the war.

Anyway, if you're in the mood for something stimulating and grand, I think this film is worth the time. It's not perfect (the weak point is the lack of emphasis on characterisation) but it's a great piece of history that comes alive on the Hollywood screen thanks to the deft touch of a veteran director and some strong source material.

DIRECTOR: King Vidor
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by about nine people (including King Vidor), based on the classic novel by Tolstoy.
KEY ACTORS: Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, Vittorio Gassman, Herbert Lom, Oskar Homolka, Anita Ekberg, Jeremy Brett, John Mills

RELATED TEXTS:
- War and Peace, the epic Russian novel by Leo Tolstoy.
- More faithfully adapted by Russian writer/director/actor Sergei Bondarchuk as a seven and a half hour film in four parts, released between 1965 and 1967.
- War and Peace has also been adapted into television series by the British (in the 1970s, with Anthony Hopkins as Pierre), the Italians (in 2007) and the French (in 2000).
- For other films set during the Napoleonic Wars, see The Duellists, Waterloo, Desiree and Napoleon.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design.
BAFTAs - nominated for Best British Actress (Audrey Hepburn) and Best Film.
Golden Globes - won Best Foreign Language Film. Also nominated for Best Film (Drama), Best Actress - Drama (Hepburn), Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Oskar Homolka)