Yet another television adaptation of Tolstoy's War and Peace is on the way. From what I've read, they were still working on the script. Apparently, a film company based in Moscow has planned the project, yet the script will be written in English. Here is the Web address for more information.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/09/01/102.html
Yeah cool!
shareI wonder if this one will be a flop, too. Gavin Scott (who is doing the teleplay) also wrote the scripts for two other mini-series: Mists of Avalon and Earthsea. Imho, both fell way short of being good. But then, it looks like he's got help on this one. I hope so. I'd like to see a decent updated version of War and Peace.
shareDoes anyone know when it's coming out in North America ? Apparently, it's already made a debut in April in Italy.
shareThe full lenght version was premiered at the Rome tv fiction festival early in june (2007) and will be broadcasted in 4 nights throughout many european countries in the coming fall/winter. Nothing seems to be certain about the rest of the world but you can check the www.alchemy.tv site. These guys seem to have the international selling rights...
shareFor all I know the original script was written by two italian writers, Enrico Medioli and Lorenzo Favella, since the whole production business took its way in Rome thanks to LuxVide. Gavin Scott joined afterwards to adapt the dialogues in English because this was the language in which the film was shot.
shareThe series will be broadcasted on raiuno, the main italian tv channel, starting on october 21st 2007. According to recent news found on the web, it looks as if Belgium will actually start earlier, broadcasting the first episode on october 19th, 2007. Other european countries will soon follow.
shareI just saw a trailer on France 2 tonight, and it just said " coming soon"
shareFrance 2 will start airing war and peace on november 6th
shareThanks Favela;
I actually remember watching the SUPERB 26 part BBC adaptation that went out in the early 70's with a very young and then unknown Anthony Hopkins as Pierre.
It is such a long and dense novel that an adaptation in only four parts cannot surely do it justice. The impression I got from the trailer is that it will be more about the war than about the peace- in fact to begin with I thought they were about to rerun the Napoleon series they did with Christian Clavier.
You should have seen the trailers shown over here in Italy. Entirely the opposite: they were all about love and romance! Making the whole thing look like a lavish soap-opera, which is not quite the case. So I guess trailers can often be misleading. For all I've seen - only the first two episodes were shown so far here in Italy - the film is excellent and received some very good reviews.
shareThanks for the recommendation, I shall give it a go when it comes on .
I should think that trailers are aimed at each countries tastes. In S America they LOVE action films- mention Tom Cruise and its -WOW, mention Johnny Depp and its -WHO?? I love the fact that the world and even Europe hangs onto its differences :-)
I watched the third episode yesterday evening on Belgian tv..I really enjoyed this one and i had only a thing in my head at the end..."The next episode will be the last"
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As to me, I keep watching only to find faults. And to nag here, on IMDb.
"Voyna i Mir" is no "Harry Potter" and nowadays even we, here in present-day Russia, do not have enough craft to film it properly. Do I have to say that the moral quality of our life has deteriorated immensely? Fortunately, a proper film was screened during our Soviet times. The American version of the 1950s was justified to some extent - ours did not even exist yet. There were extenuating circumstances then.
Regards,
Andrei
Just watched it on RTR as well. I agree with you that the choice of actors was simply horrid (especially Natasha... oh god, I cringed at her face and her acting every time) and that they missed most of what the book was about and that it had tons of technical gaffes. BUT. I think this version did what it was supposed to: spark interest in Tolstoy in a digestible format for the European audience. I heard reports that his books are selling like crazy now. The ratings were very high as well, so all in all the project was a success.
share"I think this version did what it was supposed to: spark interest in Tolstoy in a digestible format for the European audience."
That's exactly what one newspaper here in Germany wrote. They had a go at this version and practically pulled it to pieces, but in the end they said that it will surely renew the interest in the book and introduce new readers to it.
I have only watched part one and two on TV so far (next two parts next week), but I will surely get the book to get the full story! Even though a quip said by one well-known Ukrainian boxer in an ad ;-) has made it into popular culture here: "Tolstoi? Schwere Kost!" (=heavy going).
I wasn't too impressed with some of the cast (there were some horrible misfits in the dubbing, too), but it managed to keep my interest enough to make me watch the next parts as well.
--
"I was born to speak all mirth and no matters." (Much Ado About Nothing, 1993)
All in all it's not so bad so far (after the first two episodes). Sure, it's simplistic and naive, and of course no match for Bondarchuk's masterpice or even the hollywood version... but hell, it is modern! People say that it feels like a soap opera and that's exactly what makes it fit in present day in my opinion. In fact "War and Peace" was exactly like a soap opera when it came out in the 19th century. People read it for weeks and even months.
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