Posted on 11/02/2015 12:12:27 PM PST by C19fan
Move over Downton Abbey - a new trailer for BBC drama War and Peace promises love, sex, battle and intrigue and is certainly not for the faint hearted with passionate scenes in the bushes. It's been hotly tipped as the must-see drama of 2016, and now the BBC has released the first trailer from forthcoming drama adapted by Andrew Davies and starring Lily James, 12 Years A Slave star Paul Dano, James Norton and Gillian Anderson. Set against a stunning snowy backdrop, lead James - who plays Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky - declares 'I love her', aptly setting the scene for a spectacular six-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's literary epic.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Read the novel. Nothing can ever top it.
Cannot wait!!!
Thanks for posting :)
Agree. But, the visuals of the time period costumes will be amazing to see.
I listened to it on CD ... 56 discs, iirc. I don’t remember many passionate scenes in the bushes.
BBC version from the 1972 with Anthony Hopkins as Pierre was also excellent. Hope this one won’t disappoint.
Loved the book. Can’t say I thought much of the Henry Fonda movie. And I’ve seen a mixed bag of “Anna Karenina” attempts. So this one could go either way.
Yes, thats the standard to beat.
The second-best BBC drama of its day, behind “I, Claudius”.
There would be, if HBO ever makes their version.
Every Napoleon scene will be + Polish mistress deshabillee.
And etc.
Yeah, probably.
I almost dread what filmmakers are going to do to one of my favorite books.
Typically, they make a great book into a superficial, lurid, one dimensional farce.
Too bad.
Henry Fonda was TOTALLY miscast in that movie. (I don’t like him anyway)
I liked Outlander!
About as bad as John Wayne trying to play Genghis Khan.
Some years ago I bought and read Anna Karenina for the 1st time after watching the 1997 film version and then the 1948 film version starring Vivian Leigh - forgo the most recent film version - dreadfull! I haven't gotten around to War & Peace - not yet.
I know it is one of those must reads so perhaps this winter, to read on cold dreary days and with many cups of hot English tea and a cozy blanket, I will pick it up War And Peace from the library or better yet go to my local bookstore and buy it - it seems like forever the last time I bought a big heavy serious book, but oh how I love holding one in my hands knowing it is mine forever and turning the pages at my leisure and then putting it on my ever expanding bookshelf but looking at its binding as I would a picture of a dear old friend who I can revisit any time I want.
I found the pace of the novel Anna Karenina was very slow and very detailed, richly so, beautifully written, but also very heavy - at times overly wordy, a bit of a burden to read and maintain interest in at times - sort of as the cliché goes - "it was like reading War and Peace" - LOL!.
Much of the dialogue in Anna Karenina from what I recall was the internal unspoken dialogue -the inner most thoughts of the characters but those also being key to understanding their motivations and subsequent actions for better or worse.
Especially that of Konstantin Levin who seems to always be lamenting and alternatingly embracing and often questioning the meaning of his life in a rapidly changing world and his place in it; making him in my opinion the most sympathetic characters in the novel and a moral counter point to Anna and Vronkski's passion and the coldness of Karenina, but also at the same time the most frustrating and difficult to understand character in the novel. Reading Levin's inter dialogue with himself, at times I just wanted to say to him - "man up and get on with it, you are making things way to complicated" : ),
I think that this type of novel - Anna Karenina and I would guess also War And Peace; because the narration and the internal and unspoken dialogue is so important to the story, it does not readily make for good film adaptations. Some novels just do not easily lend themselves to film. And when a film maker only uses spoken dialogue and action sequences, no matter how well done or lavishly filmed, the elaborate costuming or epic scenes to tell the story and or then tries to fill in the narrative or the character's internal thoughts with dialogue or action not in the novel or with wholly invented scenes or other film tricks, much is often lost as to the novel's underlying truth and meaning and message.
One of the few exceptions to that rule at least in my opinion was the Martin Scorsese film adaptation of Edith Wharton's Age Of Innocence - one of my favorite novels and IMO one of the best film adaptations that effectively used a voice over to narrate the unspoken dialogue, by the late Joanne Woodward, along with great acting and beautiful cinematography. It never felt contrived or forced or intrusive on the dialogue - beautifully done.
The latest version of “Karenina” was an abomination starring Kiera Knightly. As easy as she is on the eyes, she couldn’t save this horror. If you have ever seen the Heath Ledger breakout film “A Knight’s Tale,” with its jarringly achronistic dance sequences and po-mo flashes, you’ve got an idea of what director Joe Wright did to poor Anna.
You can impose 21st-century sensibilities on 19th-century events only so long before you lose narrative integrity by tearing the events from their context.
Bother to see that version only as an object lesson in how NOT to translate Russian.
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