Sunday, February 12, 2012

Vidor's WAR AND PEACE by Tolstoy

Just as the vastness of the taiga defeated Napoleon, the bagginess of Tolstoy's epic defeats King Vidor to some extent. He must choose, and focuses on a triad: awkward Count Pierre, his ill-fated friend Prince Andrei, and his destined wife Nataha, "not pretty but full of life", a role outshone by actress Audrey Hepburn. I appreciate elision of so many characters and their diminutives and less confusing Countesses Natalya Rostova with Natalia Ilyinichna. 

Pierre is a true seeker. There is not time for his freemasonry (and freeing of his serfs) and reading of Revelation. Only in prison soes he meet a wise man. Natasha smiles at the disguise he adopts in order to assasinate Napoleon. If we are attentive to functions of marriage in European history we will see a link between love and war, land and family.

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