An Epic Among Epics

As I watched the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony the other night in high definition, one word kept creeping into my mind, and that word was “epic”. With a price tag of around $300 million, vastly topping the previous opening ceremony record of $30 million in Athens four years ago, the Chinese got exactly what they wanted. It was a jaw-dropping, awe inspiring spectacle that certainly left most people nodding in agreement with Bob Costas' “retire the trophy” remark. Best of all, the ceremony was directed by Zhang Yimou, the talented filmmaker behind Raise the Red Lantern (1991), To Live (1994), Hero (2002), and many other fine pictures. Yimou's best films have a more intimately profound effect and pack a greater emotional wallop, but for purely grandiose scale he won't ever match this.

The theme of the ceremony was tied into Chinese history, which got me thinking about historical epics of the motion picture variety. Films like Intolerance (1916), Napoleon (1927), Gone With the Wind (1939), Ben-Hur (1959), Spartacus (1960), El Cid (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Ran (1985), Braveheart (1995), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and many more. There has never been a shortage of handsome, elaborately designed mega-productions in cinema history. Yet, how many epic films have enjoyed the nearly unlimited financial backing of a government, like Yimou's opening ceremony did? The most epic of all epic films, Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace, had exactly that.

Based on Russian author Leo Tolstoy's classic masterpiece, often considered the finest novel ever written, the Soviet government was eager to create a definitive screen version that would absolutely obliterate Hollywood's 1956 attempt. As an added bonus, the Cold War was in full swing at the time, and the Soviets were hungry for any opportunity to one-up the United States. As others have stated, it looks like War and Peace sat right alongside the space program on the list of Soviet priorities in the 1960's. Their goal, in a nutshell, was to create the greatest screen spectacle of all time. Without question, they succeeded.

Shot in 70mm, with a gargantuan budget of over $100 million, War and Peace is easily the most costly film ever made. Today, the very same film would be over $700 million to produce, with some estimates running as high as $1 billion. By comparison, Cleopatra (1963), the second most expensive film in history, cost less than half of that (about $315 million adjusted for inflation). However, unlike some big budget extravaganzas, you truly see every dime of that money up on the screen in Bondarchuk's film. From the elaborate costumes and opulent sets, to the soaring crane shots and the 120,000 Red Army soldiers employed for the battle scenes; this is nothing short of a cinematic behemoth. The four major setpieces, namely the Battle of Austerlitz, Natasha's first ball, the Battle of Borodino, and the burning of Moscow, are truly stunning.

War and Peace runs nearly seven hours, and required seven years to make (two of them in pre-production). It was released in four parts between 1965 and 1967 in the Soviet Union, and went on to defeat strong competition like Milos Forman's The Fireman's Ball and Francois Truffaut's Stolen Kisses in winning the Best Foreign Film Academy Award in 1969. As immense as the picture is, Bondarchuk never loses sight of the characters or storyline, which is why War and Peace can be labeled a great motion picture, not just a great epic.

For the uninitiated, War and Peace successfully tackles just about every possible element of the human condition. It is primarily about a group of aristocratic families in early 19th century Russia, and the way their lives change over a nine year period. It is a time of many questions and few answers, as Naploeon's Grand Army poses a serious threat to the nation as a whole. Though there are many wonderful characters, three emerge as the principals. Pierre Bezukhov, the good natured illegitimate son of a wealthy Count, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, the unhappy cynic who leaves to battle the French, and the young and lively Natasha Rostova. As the years pass, these characters weave in and out of each other's lives, powerless to control most of the circumstances forcing them to action. By the end, each of these characters has aged physically, but more importantly, they have grown as human beings.

Of course, the wonderful casting plays no small role in the success of the film. Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Bondarchuk himself are both terrific leading men, playing Prince Andrei and Pierre, respectively. However, the most difficult role to cast had to be that of Natasha, since Audrey Hepburn had knocked the ball out of the park less than ten years prior in King Vidor's version. Bondarchuk chose Lyudmila Savelyeva, a ballerina in her early twenties, and the choice proved to be an inspired one. Savelyeva effortlessly captures the innocence and wide-eyed romanticism of Natasha, but as the character matures throughout the story, the actress remains up to the task. A little scene where she dances to folk music in a hunting lodge nearly steals the show.

While plenty of film adaptations actually do improve upon their source material (The Godfather, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Psycho, Jaws, etc.), the same can not be said for War and Peace. Even a seven hour film can not cram in every little detail and nuance of one of the greatest novels in history, especially one well over a thousand pages long. On the other hand, I would argue that the novel can not measure up to the magnificence of actually seeing some of these incredible events play out. I concede the novel is superior overall, but this story, in each medium, nicely compliments the other.

At any rate, Bondarchuk's War and Peace is clearly the best film version out of the seven or so that have been made. The 1972 BBC miniseries, starring Anthony Hopkins, remains the most faithful to the text of the novel, thanks to a generous fifteen hour running time, but fails to adequately capture the spirit of the novel. This is a distinctly Russian story about the Russian people, it isn't about British actors walking around in drawing rooms. The BBC version, for all its strengths (including a fine script by Jack Pulman of I, Claudius fame), lacks a cinematic feel, and ultimately comes across as more of a recorded stage play. Additionally, Morag Hood was a bit too old to be believable as the thirteen year old Natasha, and several performances suffer from overacting. By contrast, Bondarchuk's version brings the novel to life in purely cinematic terms, with a talented Russian crew, genuine historical locations, and a deep understanding of Tolstoy's prose.

War and Peace opens a door to a world that will never be seen again. I refer not to the way all historical epics open doors to long lost times and places, but rather to the vast canvas of this film in particular. Never again will there be a picture on the scale of War and Peace, as such a task would be prohibitively expensive for any studio or combination of studios under the sun. In terms of sheer size, the battle scenes will never be equaled without the aid of computer animation, and no animation can compete with the real thing. Peter Jackson and Weta Digital supplied some entertaining battles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but swarms of artificial men brought to life with a few keystrokes simply can not awe us in the same way. Nor can they portray the emotion of war as effectively.

Taking up over an hour of the movie is The Battle of Borodino, a phenomenal achievement to gawk over, but Bondarchuk makes certain we never forget the messy, horrific side of the conflict. It's not all pageantry and chest pounding; there is a toll paid in human life, and here that toll includes some of the major characters. Many would argue that the Battle of Shrewsbury in Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight is the greatest battle scene in film history, or the rain drenched climax of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, or the Omaha Beach landing in Saving Private Ryan. Scenes from Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and John Woo's Hong Kong films would get consideration, perhaps even something from Bondarchuk's own 1970 film, Waterloo. There are plenty of excellent battle sequences in the cinema, but a case could easily be made for Borodino's place at the top of the pack. Bondarchuk does not use rapid cutting, nor does he typically place the camera right in the middle of the action, with clanging swords and bodies falling. Instead, he orchestrates longer takes, with energetic cinematography, so we can better see the battle as it unfolds. The end result is rewarding, to say the least.

Despite all of this high praise, Bondarchuk's film isn't perfect. For the most part the editing and camerawork are brilliant, even innovative back in the 60's, but some of the attempts at stylish technique are a bit out of place and displeasing. I'm sure they seemed trendy at the time, but their “cool” factor has aged about as well as the mosquito attack in John Huston's The African Queen, or the homoerotic beach volleyball scene in Top Gun. In addition, the film relies too heavily on voice-over narration to fill in extra detail. Used in moderation, voice-over isn't necessarily a bad thing, but here it tends to come across as a clumsy, unimaginative device.

Nonetheless, War and Peace is a film that demands to be seen, preferably in a theater, or at least on a nice big screen somewhere. The phrase, "They don't make them like this anymore," has been overused for decades, but in the case of War and Peace it is genuinely true. Actually, they never did make them like this before War and Peace was released, and they still don't make them like this forty-one years later.

Below, I have provided a short video I threw together simply to give an idea of how epic War and Peace really is. That is all it is: an idea. This video doesn't even begin to show the full detail of these images. There are tons of things going on in the deepest reaches of these shots which can not be made out at all in this little video. The final shot may be the most epic single shot in film history, but it can barely be seen here. Please consider this as you watch. Also, there is a new restoration of this movie going on now, but if you are interested in a current DVD, get the five disc RUSCICO version. Do not get the Kultur version. It is cropped to a 4:3 aspect ratio and looks terrible. Be sure to click the "HQ" (high quality) button for this video.