War and Peace (1967) Movie Overview

War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир, Voyna i mir) is a Soviet-produced film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace. Sergei Bondarchuk directed the film, co-wrote the screenplay and also acted in the lead role of Pierre. The film took seven years to produce and cost over US$100 million. If inflation is taken into account, a film of this magnitude would cost over US$700 million today, making War and Peace the most expensive film ever made. Pre-production started at Mosfilm in 1961, and filming commenced in 1963. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the Battle of Borodino scene included 120,000 soldiers, making it one of the largest battle scenes ever filmed. Many museums in the USSR contributed artifacts for the production design, making it one of the most elaborate films ever created. In relating Tolstoy’s complex tale of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, Bondarchuk helmed some of the most graphic battle scenes ever seen, one of which runs nearly 45 minutes. So many horses were killed in these sequences that the film was loudly boycotted in some American cities by the ASPCA. War and Peace was one of the first films in the USSR to be shot and released in 70 mm. T… Source

• War and Peace Movie Details
• Director: Sergei Bondarchuk
• Country: Soviet Union
• Run Time: UK:401 min (video version) | USA:414 min (4 parts) | Soviet Union:427 min | Italy:263 min (2 parts) | Argentina:453 min (4 parts)
• Genre: Drama , History , Romance , War

• Cast Overview
• Sergei Bondarchuk as Pierre Bezukhov
• Lyudmila Savelyeva as Natasha Rostova
• Vyacheslav Tikhonov as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky
• Boris Zakhava as Field Marshal Kutuzov
• Anatoli Ktorov as Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky
• Anastasiya Vertinskaya as Pricess Lisa Bolkonskaya

War and Peace Movie Review from New York Times

Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic version of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (Voyna i Mir) was the most expensive European film ever made for many years. It certainly had one of the longest gestation periods, with Bondarchuk spending seven years filming the project (the actors noticeably age from scene to scene). In relating Tolstoy’s complex t… Source

War and Peace Movie Details from Imdb

War and Peace (1968) is an eight-hour epic film based on the eponymous book by Leo Tolstoy. Two main story-lines are complex and intertwined. One is the love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov, who is unhappy in his marriage. Another is the “Great Patriotic War” of 1812 against the invading Napoleon’s Armies. The peop… Source

War and Peace (1967) from YouTube