King Vidor's War and Peace (1956) 3hrs 27 mins

The definitive film version of Leo Tolstoy's famous novel War and Peace (1868) is a seven hour film by the Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk made in 1968. It won an Oscar as the Best Foreign Film and is considered by many critics to be not only a faithful adaptation of Tolstoy's very long and deeply philosophical novel, but also a great work of cinema. Because of the its great length I have chosen instead to show a shorter (3 1/2 hour) "Hollywood" version. A dubbed version of the Russian film is currently available from video rental shops and I strongly recommend it to you. King Vidor (1894-1982) made a name for himself as a director of silent films in Hollywood during the 1920s with "The Big Parade" (1925). Continued his success with such famous talking films as "Our Daily Bread" (1934), "Northwest Passage" (1940), "The Fountainhead" (1949), "War and Peace" (1956) in which theme of struggle of man against nature and destiny is developed.