A&E was once
the go-to commercial cable network for sexy-classy miniseries adapted from the
works of Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, and the Brontës. But it’s been a decade or
more since the network aired such successful adaptations. “Pride and Prejudice” (1995), the version with Colin Firth as a shirtless, swimming Mr. Darcy, set a
new standard (ratings and budget) that PBS, HBO and other pay outlets routinely
surpass. Now A&E, again in partnership
with the BBC as it was in the late 1990s, storms back with an expensive, four-part and six-hour film of Leo Tolstoy’s 1862 novel. Filmed in Russia, Latvia, Lithuania and featuring a truly international cast, “War and Peace” is a remarkably lavish affair.
What’s surprising
isn’t just how good this “War and Peace” is—for A&E, the miniseries is a
stirring return to form—but how resonant Tolstoy’s themes are today. A tale
of love and coming-of-age under threat of total, apocalyptic war, the novel has
a reputation of being difficult and morose. It is long: 1,400 pages. Those
unfamiliar with Russian classics need know only that “War and Peace” is the one
with Napoleon (the Big Bad) and Natasha (the girl everyone loves).
Director Tom
Harper (“Peaky Blinders”) has never made anything on this scale, but then,
neither has anyone else, unless they’ve made a previous version of “War and
Peace.” Or if they’re Napoleon, waging the Napoleonic wars. A Russian film
adaptation from 1966 is said to be the best, and Anthony Hopkins, in 1972, was a
charmingly diffident leading man for the BBC version.
Though a Russian
film adaptation from 1966 is said to be superior, with a cast of thousands,
this new version has a cast of (virtual) tens of thousands—all of whom seem
to be realistically present on the battlefield. Harper has an
impressive handle in these battle sequences, epic clashes between Napoleon’s
forces and the Russian Army at Austerlitz and Borodino. With a sweeping
overhead shot of a dispatch rider galloping from one end of the Russian line to
the cavalry, hidden in the treeline, Harper gives a sense of both the vastness
of the battle, and the many smaller dramas about to take place within the
chaos.
More
masterly, though, is the way the miniseries captures the story’s complicated
social hierarchy, where political favors exist. Take the first episode’s dizzying
opening scene, set at a St. Petersburg soiree, which introduces nearly all the
major characters within four and a half minutes. The party, presided over by society
hostess Anna (Gillian Anderson, wry) and a political fixer (Stephen Rea, sly) attracts the city’s elite, and one awkward
newcomer: Pierre (Paul Dano), the “natural” or illegitimate son of an elderly
unmarried nobleman. As the story begins, Pierre’s a bookish idealist, complete
with nerd glasses. Pierre’s a fan of liberte, egalite, fraternite, and
Napoleon, though it’s not clear if he knows that Napoleon has declared himself
Emperor, with a plan to rule Europe. Dano overplays Pierre’s hayseed manners
and schoolmaster squint, early on, but with sheer sincerity becomes an
endearing hero.
Pierre’s unlikely best friend, Prince Andrei
(James Norton), has grand ambitions and a death wish. Married and expecting a
child, Andrei longs for glory in battle. After Andrei returns from war, a
widower, a changed man who regrets his treatment of his late wife, Norton plays
him as a Byronic brooder, alluring but cold around the heart.
When
Pierre’s father dies, the naïve bumbler unexpectedly inherits both title and
estate. (Those who fear that Tolstoy is non-stop gloom: wait for the
post-deathbed scene, in which Pierre’s estranged relatives grapple, almost to
the carpet, over the old man’s will.)
Both
young men’s lives become entwined with the Rostov family, including siblings Nikolai
(Jack Lowden), a cavalry officer with a penchant for gambling, and Natasha
(Lily James), a soulful, musically-inclined teenager. 13 years old when the story
begins, Natasha’s given to childish remarks (“How handsome they look in their
uniforms!”), though she later distinguishes herself with brave and selfless
acts as Moscow burns.
Like her brother, good-girl
Natasha shows signs of impulsiveness. Fond of dancing and music, Natasha, on a
holiday to a rural village, hears a violinist play an old folk tune. She dances
wildly, as if possessed. (“How does she know what to do?” her cousin asks.
“It’s in her blood,” comes the answer.) Her darkly passionate dance, spookily
lit and shot with a handheld camera, presages disaster to come, when, during
Andrei’s long absence, Natasha will be tempted by the creepily unworthy Anatole
(“I feel like his slave,” she says. “I want to ruin myself.”) Credit James (“Downton Abbey,” “Cinderella”) for making Natasha less of an idealized woman and more
of a perplexing, self-contradictory and troubled human being.
Davies, who
adapted “Pride and Prejudice” (1995), is renowned for uncovering the sex scenes
that the original authors forgot to include. Tolstoy is racier than Jane
Austen, so complainers (there were some among UK viewers) should not blame
Davies for expounding upon the strongly implied exploits of Pierre’s vamp of a
wife, Helene (Tuppence Middleton), who sleeps with everyone but her husband—including, maybe, her own brother, sleazy Anatole (Callum Turner). Clueless Pierre
is the butt of rude jokes, including a “Lucky Pierre” gag. (OK, blame Andrew
Davies for that one. The old devil.)
Even at six hours,
this “War and Peace” moves fast. Still, much from the novel is omitted or elided.
And it has to be, if it cannot be conveyed as drama. Yet even amid the tumult
of war, the film pauses to allow characters to reflect, to regret, to change
what they were thinking a moment ago, as when Andrei, who argues bitterly with
his aged father (Jim Broadbent) as he departs for the Battle of Borodino,
returns to his family estate when his regiment happens to pass nearby. Hoping
to warn his father of the approaching enemy, he finds the place deserted.
Like a thief, Andrei
peers through darkened, locked windows. Nothing’s said, and nothing really
happens in this scene. But everything does, because Andrei realizes that he’s
already seen his father for the last time. One of the pleasures of reading Tolstoy,
wrote critic Michael Wood, is “his extraordinary sense of the shifting grounds
of human behavior.” How wonderful to see that conveyed, in the middle of an
epic, all without a word.
