War and Peace

yes, I read the book, and have seen several filmed versions of it.

The US version with Audrey Hepburn was good, and she played Natasha wonderfully, but the Pierre character was bleh... and it cut out so much of the plots that one is sometimes lost in what is happening.

The old  BBC version was okay: It did include the subplot of Natasha's brother and Princess Mary, which is often left out, but of course it lacked a lot of production values.

The newest BBC version is much better: Pierre is more believable, and Natasha was played by the luminous Lily James.

they did change a few things, including showing Pierre's estranged wife covered with blood (hinting she died of an abortion instead of typhoid, which was in the book: back then, she easily could have just had the kid secretly and given it away, or pretended it was Pierre's,  but never mind... probably put in to stress the wonderfulness of modern baby killing, and why the anti vaxxers are correct, we don't need no stinkin' vaccines against infectious diseases like typhoid).

But they are now re releasing the Russian version that was filmed during the cold war, and in the US shown on late night tv (once): Now you can see it on the big screen.





the Russian version is very long for a film (in four parts for TV) but the scenes were played by actual soldiers.

Natasha is played by a famous Russian ballerina, and Pierre by the one who directed the film

I saw it back then, and was impressed, but don't remember much except that the Pierre character was the center of the film.