War & Peace (1956) In Pictures!

My first post for the War & Peace Carnival! I watched War & Peace, the 1956 version with Audrey Hepburn. It was, in my humble opinion, terrible. Let's have a look at equally terrible screencaps I took off Netflix! (run, don't walk! This movie expires off of Netflix the 1st of January.)

The movie begins with Natasha and Pierre looking out a window. Yes, you read that right. Natasha, played by Audrey Hepburn, knows Pierre straight off the bat and they are good friends. This, I assume, is the screenwriter's way of skipping over how their relationship grew. It also gives us all sorts of warm and fuzzy OTP moments throughout the movie where Natasha seems thrilled by Pierre's presence for no discernible reason. Also, the casting in this movie is sooo bad, Henry Fonda is way too old to be playing Pierre, everytime he came on screen I was like..."Hello Grandpa" and Audrey Hepburn, completely exquisite as she is, was wrong for Natasha, too, in my opinion!

Oh look! It's Rostov and Sonya! Don't get too attached, the filmmakers didn't care about them and they barely make an appearance.

Andrei liked his wife as much in the movie as in the book which is to say NOT MUCH AT ALL.

Aw, look!! Princess Mary! She gets like five minutes of screen time.

This is one of my favorite moments of the movie where Natasha gets a voiceover out of nowhere. This was to let us know how she was feeling about Prince Andrei. (I would have written that on the pic but unforch the text part of picmonkey wasn't working or something) A narrator also pops up late in the film to fill us in on a few things.

Unfortunately, the writer had to include some scenes of war. They made as much sense in this movie as the book + questionable treatment of the horses.

After the war, this is the Rostov's home. It reminded me of Tara, the only reason I included a photo.

In typical fashion, the end of the movie makes no consistent sense with the book, except to hastily throw Natasha and Pierre together.

Pierre emerges from the shadows like a vampire returning from the dead, somber expression on his face and all.

He reunites with Natasha. They are now in love!!! (have been through the whole movie--Andrei and Anatole were just DISTRACTIONS) and walk out of their home and take a leisurely stroll in the garden.

So yeah. This version did nothing for me. I will acknowledge that it would be VERY difficult to make a movie from this book! This one just did nothing for me.