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Splendor and misery of the 19th century: Lyudmila Saweljewa as Natascha in »War and Peace«
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Will the cinemas survive? Or will we just stream in the future? What are the new digital possibilities doing with film art? And what does the ever-growing offer do to us, the viewers? These questions still cannot be answered seriously today. But one thing is already clear: Streaming makes films even more a consumer good, a constantly available mass product. A new diversity can arise in the process, but it is likely that a lot will also be lost.
Film history in particular will have a harder time than it already has to assert oneself against the pressures of the current situation. Treasures can be found there that open your eyes and whose radiance shines up to the present day. One such unique treasure is the Soviet film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's magnum opus "War and Peace" about Napoleon's Russian campaign. A deeply happy memory of the show values and the emotional radiance of a film era that went down long before the triumphant advance of streaming services.
You can now encounter this film again in a lovingly restored version. It was released in the USA in 2019; the fact that it took two years to get here in Germany says a lot about the importance of film art in Germany. However, it is not available from a streaming service. Anyone who wants to see »War and Peace« needs an old-fashioned device: a DVD or Blu-ray player. This is nothing special for cineastes, film history is kept alive in this way to this day, because it has a subordinate economic potential for the big corporations and hardly takes place on the big platforms.
So dust off the player, insert the disc and get ready for more than seven hours in 19th century Russia. Bombast binging in a class of its own. Please DO NOT skip the overture - it is correct that the screen stays black for more than two minutes while symphonic music is played. This kind of attunement was a good tradition with the really big monumental films, of which »War and Peace« is by a huge margin the biggest. A colossus, but one with a delicate soul.
The film version of "War and Peace" from 1966/67: 432 minutes long, at $ 700 million the most expensive film of all time by a multiple (adjusted for inflation and estimated, the exact budget can no longer be determined), shot with at least 12,000 extras (soldiers of the Russian army) and staged by Sergej Bondarchuk at the risk of his life - the 40-year-old when he started work suffered two heart attacks during the five years of filming and had to be resuscitated both times.
No Hollywood producer, no matter how crazy, could have pushed through such a project. The success of this climax of cinematic megalomania was more a matter of state: the Soviet Union wanted to outdo the Hollywood version of "War and Peace" with Peter Fonda and Audrey Hepburn from 1956. The government made all financial and logistical resources available for this.
The best surprise about this film is that it actually produced living art and not dead propaganda.
"War and Peace", created in the middle of the Cold War and in memory of the bloody battles of World War II, is an imposing painting of the battles at Schöngrabern, Austerlitz and Borodino and an intimate character study at the same time.
Despite the omnipresent bombast, Bondarchuk is looking for landscapes of the soul rather than for show values: How do the devastation that war, love and the compulsion for representation leave in the innermost part of people show up?
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War and Peace (Special Edition, 4 discs)
Running time: 6 hours and 45 minutes
FSK released from 12 years
Running time: 6 hours and 45 minutes
FSK released from 12 years
From € 33.99
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12/29/2021 6:01 p.m.
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You can see battle scenes staged with gunpowder smoke and impressive mass choreographies, as well as extremely splendid balls and soirees of the Moscow and St. Petersburg societies.
Both are never ends in themselves, but allow the individual to emerge in their social structure behind the marching formations and masks.
Antiquated and modern at the same time
Sometimes you have the feeling that Bondarchuk's camera is floating away, he uses aerial photography so excessively.
In general, large parts of this film appear light-footed and playful;
With a quick cut, sudden close-ups, handheld camera and alienating coloring, he undermines the expectations of a classic monumental ham.
In this way, »War and Peace« appears impressively antiquated and modern at the same time.
Above all, those who saw this film rearrange the monumental films of our time, i.e. the inevitable blockbusters with their superheroes, monsters or catastrophes.
Despite all the advertising noise: The greatest film of all time has long been shot.