War and Peace (1956)

Directed by

King Vidor

Genre

drama film, war film, romance film, melodrama, historical film

Country

Italy, United States

Runtime

3h 28m

Rated

PG

Rating

6.6 of 10 from 278 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A dramatization of Leo Tolstoy's novel about Russian society during the Napoleonic Wars. It follows several characters mostly from aristocratic families and their intertwining lives in love and conflict.

epicromanticsweepingdramaticformaldatedslow

What happens

War and Peace (Italian: Guerra e pace) is a 1956 epic historical drama film based on the 1869 novel by Leo Tolstoy. It was directed and co-written by King Vidor and produced by Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti for Paramount Pictures. The film stars Audrey Hepburn as Natasha, Henry Fonda as Pierre, and Mel Ferrer as Andrei, along with Vittorio Gassman, Herbert Lom, Oskar Homolka, Anita Ekberg in one of her first breakthrough roles, Helmut Dantine, Barry Jones, Anna Maria Ferrero, Milly Vitale, Jeremy Brett and John Mills. The musical score was composed by Nino Rota and conducted by Franco Ferrara. War and Peace opened on August 21, 1956, to a mixed reception, with some reviewers critical with the film truncating much of Tolstoy's novel, and the casting of 50-year-old Henry Fonda as the 20-year-old Pierre Bezukhov. It received Academy Awards nominations for Best Director, Best Cinematography (Color), and Best Costume Design (Color). It was also nominated for four Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama (Audrey Hepburn), and won for Best Foreign Film. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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