War and Peace
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Herbert Lom, Mel Ferrer, Vittorio GassmanBrand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 208 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-12-03
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of War and Peace
Movie Review: A perfect intimate epic
Summary: 5 Stars
This film came out on DVD this month and I rushed to buy it. This version is the first to render all the detail and perfection of Jack Cardiff's a-ma-zing compositions and brilliant, varied photography. As a collection of definitive, memorable images, this film is better than any comparable historical epic of the period and even gives GWTW a run for its money. King Vidor's direction is a series of `tableaux vivants' where the characters are not posing but acting in a very natural, period-specific way. I have never had a problem with this adaptation of Tolstoy's novel. I think it is a wonderful introduction to the period and the novel and that it is a very poetic, very original work in its own right. The most conspicuous handicap of this movie, in my opinion, besides a few rough patches in the generally pristine celluloid - Natasha unevenly shifts from light to dark while waiting for a dancing partner at the ball and she has a hole in her nose at the opera - is its soundtrack (in glorious mono). The barely hi-fi recording of dialogues and music sounds pinched, hollow and tinny and it always has in every version I have ever seen: in the theatres, on TV and on video. Even the soundtrack album is an abomination. As limited as it is, this soundtrack is at least free of static and scratches. In some scenes, however, before the necessary adjustments (With a Dolby 5.1 receiver, try the "Mono Movie" CD setting and amplifying the "surround effects" and subwoofer volume to a maximum), Audrey Hepburn's and Mel Ferrer's voices actually hurt your ear. Nino Rota's very Russian-sounding score is serviceable and melodic, although rather sparse in its orchestration and in the number of players. But maybe that's his hommage to Mozart's simplicity... One can only wonder what `War and Peace' could have sounded like with a cohort of Hollywood arrangers, decent recording facilities and lavish, varied orchestrations in true high fidelity and stereophonic sound. According to Lukas Kendall of `Film Score Monthly', the original recording elements of the soundtrack have long ago disappeared, which is the common lot of international, independent co-productions of the era. Someone somewhere is certainly guilty of skimping on quality or embezzlement for this 1956 movie to sound so much worse than a 1939, pre-hi-fi epic like GWTW. But it's still a masterpiece!
Summary of War and Peace
SPRUCED UP ADAPTATION OF LEO TOLSTOY'S EPIC NOVEL ABOUT THE LIFEOF A RUSSIAN FAMILY DURING THE WAR OF 1812.Similar DVD Movies
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