War and Peace 1968

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War and Peace ★★★ 1968

The massive Russian production of Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece, adapting the classic tome practically scene by scene. All of the production took place in the Soviet Union. So painstaking that it took more than five years to finish, no other adaptation can touch it. Hugely expensive ($100 million, claimed the Russians), wildly uneven production. Great scenes of battle and aristocratic life. Though this version is far from perfect, one asks: Is it humanly possible to do screen justice to such a novel? In Russian with English subtitles. On four tapes. (Beware the two-part, poorly dubbed version that was also released.) 373m/C VHS, DVD . RU Lyudmila Savelyeva, Sergei Bondarchuk, Vyacheslav Tihonor, Hira Ivanov-Golarko, Irina Gubanova, Antonina Shuranova; D: Sergei Bondarchuk; C: Jack Cardiff. Oscars ‘68: Foreign Film; Golden Globes ‘69: Foreign Film; N.Y. Film Critics ‘68: Foreign Film.