I saw this film in one go at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the 1970s, and remember only being bored. But I knew nothing then about Tolstoy's work, so that was probably inevitable. Since then I have read the book (it's not a novel, said Tolstoy), seen the 1956 film and also the 2007 and 2016 TV series. All of those have their virtues.
The Bondachurk film has now appeared in Youtube in four segments and I have managed to watch it. Although it has brief moments of greatness (usually related to the scenery), these are far outweighed by the many faults, which I would list as follows: a. Despite the length, the script leaves out huge chunks of the story, particularly for certain characters, among them Helena Kuragina, Sonya, Maria Bolksonskaya and Nikolai Rostov. In general the military aspects are favoured above the personal, and although it could be said that other adaptations go too far the other way, the balance here is far awry. Also, there is insufficient connectivity between scenes so that if you don't know the original you may well wonder what is happening; b. The casting is very bad. Of course I was reading subtitles rather than understanding Russian, but I cannot think of a single character where the performance was more than adequate. Kutuzsov and Natasha might just about deserve that label (in the latter case, it was a welcome change to see Natasha played as young as she should be). Some characters like the Kuragins were entirely unmemorable, Prince Andrei was colourless and Pierre was a stolid dolt; c. Most of the battle scenes were interminable and boring. Yes, there were thousands of men on loan from the Red Army and loads of horses, but you need more than that to make a battle interesting. The viewer needs to know what is going on; there needs to be tension. And very little of the book's extensive philosophical points about war came out; ci. The direction was very uninspired. There were, for example, too few close-ups of people when they were talking. This distances the audience from the characters and makes it more difficult to engage with them. Some of the sequences which were meant to be clever (eg Prince Andrei's death) just looked silly.
Overall, I think it worth watching if you are interested in the book, but prepare for a gruelling time.
The Bondachurk film has now appeared in Youtube in four segments and I have managed to watch it. Although it has brief moments of greatness (usually related to the scenery), these are far outweighed by the many faults, which I would list as follows: a. Despite the length, the script leaves out huge chunks of the story, particularly for certain characters, among them Helena Kuragina, Sonya, Maria Bolksonskaya and Nikolai Rostov. In general the military aspects are favoured above the personal, and although it could be said that other adaptations go too far the other way, the balance here is far awry. Also, there is insufficient connectivity between scenes so that if you don't know the original you may well wonder what is happening; b. The casting is very bad. Of course I was reading subtitles rather than understanding Russian, but I cannot think of a single character where the performance was more than adequate. Kutuzsov and Natasha might just about deserve that label (in the latter case, it was a welcome change to see Natasha played as young as she should be). Some characters like the Kuragins were entirely unmemorable, Prince Andrei was colourless and Pierre was a stolid dolt; c. Most of the battle scenes were interminable and boring. Yes, there were thousands of men on loan from the Red Army and loads of horses, but you need more than that to make a battle interesting. The viewer needs to know what is going on; there needs to be tension. And very little of the book's extensive philosophical points about war came out; ci. The direction was very uninspired. There were, for example, too few close-ups of people when they were talking. This distances the audience from the characters and makes it more difficult to engage with them. Some of the sequences which were meant to be clever (eg Prince Andrei's death) just looked silly.
Overall, I think it worth watching if you are interested in the book, but prepare for a gruelling time.