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With 10 years in the making, two years of filming and (as a previous reviewer renowned) no less than six writers, Tolstoy’s sage masterpiece à la Hollywood does win a bit muddled and lost at times, but who cares!?!? The film’s cast is stellar. Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer and Henry Fonda were each born to play their respective roles in this monumental film. Fonda plays the quixotic Pierre almost as suitable as Sergei Bondarchuk does in the more just (though also more brutal and heart-wrenching) 1967 Russian version. Hepburn, as the elegant and ingenuous Natasha is a perfect foil to Mel Ferrer’s Prince Andre, who loses his unhappy and positive seriousness only in the presence of Natasha (the same could almost be said of the film!) .
Where the Hollywood version is lacking in battle scenes, historic detail, commentary from ordinary Russians and several key character developments (Mary Oblonsky, Nicholas Rostov, the Tsar, Denisov et al), it more than makes up for it with personal performances (above mentioned actors), status and costume gain and an overall mood and tone consistent with the book.
This film should not be seen by people who examine faithful and tireless book-to-screen adaptations (the Sergei Bondarchuk version might be a better choice), but by people who want to pick up a sublime essence of one of the greatest novels ever written.
As a deeply-adoring Audrey Hepburn fan, I have mixed feelings about this movie, as do many Hepburn devotees. It’s hard not to wonder what the then-new record master, David Lean, might have done with it, had he been in charge instead of King Vidor, a giant of the soundless era from decades before.
Buy,Download, Or Stream War and Peace! Click Here
Buy,Download, Or Stream War and Peace! Click Here
The epic I secure from Hepburn biographies is that the producer of this movie shrewdly cast Hepburn’s husband, Mel Ferrer, before offering a fragment to her. Immediately a rival pre-production group shut down their preparations for a “War and Peace” adaptation, intellectual that the plum actress for the fragment would surely not stamp with them. (To my knowledge, Lean never got anywhere approach either production.)
Well, if that’s the case, then “War and Peace” might have been flawed from the inaugurate. The domino conclude of starting with Ferrer’s casting, securing the directorial efforts of a somewhat-aging Vidor, and also having Hepburn to gain appreciate to her contain husband onscreen, might have meant that something about this movie seems a bit too comfortable for all fervent in making it. It’s not as dramatic as it needs to be, as cruel in its cruel moments as it needs to be, and therefore not as captivating and revelatory of what’s astronomical about the human spirit when it needs to be. It does — to my mind — feel a bit bloated, a bit wearisome, and never quite at that high-stakes level you might hope.
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Indeed, another tale about the movie and its “problematic-ness” was told by King Vidor himself in his autobiography. Apparently, at the time of the movie’s production or maybe release, his wife had chid him for letting his contain, rather fatherly affection for Audrey Hepburn prevent him from letting her play the fullness of Natasha’s character — which is not always a fine one in the book. Vidor copped to this accusation, accepting that he had not pushed her as he might have. Tellingly, in the autobiography he went so far (I have) as to name young Hepburn as his celebrated actress to have ever worked with. There is something touching but not quite fortunate in that, because “War and Peace” will never be remembered as a Vidor masterpiece or even a work of the man in his prime. Perhaps it illustrates that, again, this movie was only going to go so far with itself.
Who knows? But my accepted narrative about this movie shows the intelligence of Hepburn herself. She had asked that Peter Ustinov be cast as Pierre, which to my mind would have been completely perfect casting. Pierre in the book is a bit paunchy, a bit clumsy, but also strongly gleaming and bursting with questions about life and society. Ustinov would have been perfect, given the mind and the comical talent he had. (Ustinov also wrote a stunning eulogy upon Audrey Hepburn’s death, which is quoted in his book “Composed at Spacious.” He thanked her for thinking of him when Pierre needed casting, saying that her choice of him had continued to surprise him throughout his life. He too was a UNICEF representative in his lifetime, and when he passed away, my mourning for him was mixed with thoughts of Hepburn as well.)
But as to the movie … I will say that there is nothing inept or embarrassing about this adaptation. There are world-class actors in this movie, and if you’re waiting for mistakes from them, don’t contain your breath. (Henry Fonda, whatever his speaking accent, definitely understood something about Pierre, as did Ferrer about Andrei and certainly Hepburn about Natasha.) You can stare this movie straight through or in sections on DVD, and probably approach to like it quite a bit either diagram. It’s blooming for Hepburn alone, but also in so many other ways. But once you know the background of the movie, you do risk getting a case of the what-ifs? If you can ignore them, more power to you.
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