Amazon.com: Like Tolstoy's novel, this epic-length War and Peace is rough going, but worth the effort. Winner of the 1969 Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film and widely considered the most faithful adaptation of Tolstoy's classic, Sergei Bondarchuk's massive Soviet-Italian coproduction was seven years in the making, at a record-setting cost of $100 million. Bondarchuk himself plays the central role of Pierre Bezukhov, buffeted by fate during Russia's tumultuous Napoleonic Wars, serving as pawn and philosopher through some of the most astonishing set pieces ever filmed. Bondarchuk is a problematic director: interior monologues provide awkward counterpoint to intimate dramas, weaving together the many classes and characters whose lives are permanently affected by war. Infusions of '60s-styled imagery clash with the film's period detail; it's an anomalous experiment that doesn't really work. Undeniably, however, the epic battle scenes remain breathtakingly unique; to experience the sheer scale of this film is to realize that such cinematic extravagance will never be seen again. --Jeff Shannon
War and Peace - Russian version I bought the Russian version of "War and Peace" from you, a 3-DVD boxed set. The work is magnificent, on the massive scale one seldom sees nowadays. True to Tolstoy in every respect, a viewing pleasure of rare proportions. The actors play their parts with consummate skill, so much so that they imprint themselves on to your memory. Anyone who has a sense of history - not merely of Napoleonic-era history - should see this film and derive from it the degree of pleasure that I and my family derived from it. Bill (Australia)
feeling stupid I feel a little stupid doing this because I haven't been able to review this product. I sent the movie back because it's a 3 disc movie and I got disc # 2 twice and no disc # 3. I sent the disc's back and I asked for a replacement. Today is September 3, 2008 and I purchased the discs on July 30, 2008. So far, nothing has happened. I am at a loss for words and I feel very stupid ordering from Amazon. Maybe they sent my order to the Amazon in Brazil. I don't know. I just feel very stupid.
War and Peace (Special Edition) It is a masterpiece. The battle scenes are memorable. I watched this movie many years ago, on TV. It was worth watching it now on a big screen TV and from the Special Edition DVD.
THE PHANTOM FIFTH DISK I just recieved and watched in one sitting the Special Edition of War and Peace. I first saw this film in 1968 at the Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles. It was shown in two parts in differant weeks. I went on the two days corresponding to the last day of Part One and the first day of Part Two. (This of course was the English dubbed version.)I was on leave from the Navy and later thatg year saw the film again in France in four parts. Each part dubbed in French with English Subtitles.
I noted several reviewers commenting on no fifth disk. My sealed set is in the original Russian Package and inside is a extra disk in its own slip cover. This fifth disk is full of interesting bonus materials including a film on the making of War and Peace which is second to none. It is interesting to see the tricks needed to carry out such scenes as the buring of Moscow and the danger it posed to the camera crew.
I have only one main regret on this edition. When you go to English language it is obvious the a complete English language sound track was unavailable. It takes some getting used to as at any moment, within a persons dialogue, you flip from dubbed English to Russian with English subtitles. This version is in four parts and each holds it own and the viewer can enjoy the total film over four nights. I fully enjoyed this film again and highly recommend it.
Monumental, Oustanding Film If "War and Peace" is arguably the greatest novel ever written, this has to be one of the most outstanding films ever made. The grandeur, the scope, the almost unimaginable battle scenes, the thousands of soldiers and horses and cannons, the tender love scenes and most of all, the depth of the Russian soul which,in the end, was the victor over the invading Grand Armee of Napoleon. This six-hour masterpiece is stunning in its magnificence. The one I viewed had substitles, thus letting the Russian and occasional French dialog get through -- even though I couldn't understand a word. It just made the film all the more...Russian. A lot of the book was necessarily omitted, but on the whole, the film was a faithful reproduction of the essence of the book. Oh well, I could string superlatives all day but suffice it to say that this power of this wonderful film does justice to the greatness of the underlying novel.
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