War And Peace (1968)

You may recognise this clip from an 80s beer advert - it was redubbed to have them singing an amusing lyric about wearing a silly hat. Anyway...I got the dvd of this the other day to reeplace my old VHS set and I can honestly say that it is the greatest historical film ever made. It has elements that remind me of silent cinema in particular epic films like Abel Gance's Napoleon. It's so not Hollywood. In a good way. My son just remarked that it doesn't have the 60s 'look' like say Richardson's 'Charge of the Light Brigade' released the same year but instead War and Peace really looks like a historical painting brought to life. With the power of the state providing the 150,000 plus extras this is cinema that will never be done again - never more will epics be made on this scale - with digital effects you can get away with about 100 extras step and repeated to use an old print term. So if you are one of these people with a huge flat screen tv or something similar and you want something to do it justice invest in this dvd - you screen will never see its like again.War and Peace Series of films showing the production being made with the Red Army etc