The 7 hour war professional#

The good folks at Janus Films have undertaken the herculean work of rebeautifying BondarchukвЂ™s footage, and in 2019, theyвЂ™re getting it back out there: First, a run at New YorkвЂ™s Film Society of Lincoln Center starting Friday, then a run in Los Angeles, other major cities, and finally, a video/digital release later in the year.

The 1966 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film was just the feather in its cap - er, shako.Д«ut the difficulty of preserving, displaying, and distributing such a massive piece of work (a whopping 20 canisters of film reels made transportation a sizable hassle) all but sealed it away from the publicвЂ™s access, excepting the occasional repertory run of a badly beaten-up copy. Released in four parts in 19, it was a colossal success in its original homeland run as well as a worldwide sensation, and playing as a four-night special on ABC in 1972 after having set a new record for highest ticket cost - as steep as $7.50, the equivalent of dropping $56.52 on a ticket today, and a big step up from the $1.20 rate in place at the time - during theatrical screenings of an abridged six-hour edit in the US. The filmвЂ™s larger-than-life legend begins in 1961, when Bondarchuk commandeered the largest budget the USSR had ever seen for a single motion picture. Anyone who hears вЂњ431 minutes of War and PeaceвЂќ and imagines an airless museum exhibit passing itself off as a film has another thing coming. The adaptation set a new standard for вЂњepic,вЂќ capturing all the passion and tragedy of NapoleonвЂ™s clash against the Russian aristocracy in its seven-hour sprawl. The story of its production, of a man moving heaven and Earth to realize a staggering vision, boggles the mind to this day. Having said all that: In any serious, sober-minded discussion about what could be selected to exemplify the farthest reaches of cinemaвЂ™s capabilities, War and Peace - Sergei BondarchukвЂ™s largely unseen adaptation of TolstoyвЂ™s literary classic - would have to be on the table. And even some voracious readers are guilty of seeing the writings of Leo Tolstoy as an essential chore.

The 7 hour war professional#

Good critics avoid hyperbole as a rule, and declaring a single film to be the greatest ever made makes a professional sound like an undergrad who just saw Citizen Kane for the first time.