This weekend, IU Cinema will be showing the Academy Award-winning film “War and Peace.” The show starts at noon Saturday with $4 admission.
Released as an anthology, this screening includes four full-length features for a total runtime of eight hours. Midway through, the show will offer an extended intermission with food truck service outside the theater from 4 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.
“War and Peace” follows noble families and addresses love and court life through the fraught romance of Pierre Bezukhov and Hélène Kuragin. This romance is framed against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Depicting the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the 1812 fire, the film provides a look into Russian military history.
At the time of its release throughout 1966 and 1967, “War and Peace” boasted one of the largest budgets to date. To this day it stands as one the most expensive films ever made. The movie is an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s iconic Russian novel and features English subtitles.
Sergei Bondarchuk directed the film and played the lead role of Bezukhov. “War and Peace” won Bondarchuk an Academy Award for best foreign language film in 1968.
In 1952, Bondarchuk held the distinction of People’s Artist of the Soviet Union, attaining this honor at the record-breaking age of 32.
"War and Peace" offers a glimpse into the lives of the Russian elite and tells a tale of love, war and politics.
