I’ve placed Sergei Bondarchuk’s **War and Peace ** in my Netflix que. Should I watch it? I’ve heard about the movie, but have no idea if it is worth the substanial investment in time.
YMMV, of course, but I once borrowed it from my public library on a weeknight and had to force myself to finish on another night so I would get enough sleep for work the next day. About the only part that seemed to drag on was the overflight shot of the French army retreating while Napoleon’s voiceover made all sorts of overblown rhetoric; so as to contrast with Kutuzov’s brief and to-the-point “well, if they’re in the shit, that’s too bad” speech to his own troops.
To me it’s not a masterpiece, but it is worth seeing.
Though probably not in one go; when the NFT screened it across a single day the other year, I was pretty frazzled by the end. By contrast, I didn’t feel that way when I saw Gance’s Napoleon under similarish circumstances.