War and Peace BBC1

[jean]

...French...was also the international language of diplomacy...

As it still is of international postage!

Our own airmail stickers still add 'par avion,' just in case.

.

[Richard Tarleton]

Our own airmail stickers still add 'par avion,' just in case.

This is doubtless appreciated by sorters outside Wales

[jayne lee wilson]

I felt this was uncompelling as TV Drama, with four-square acting & directing, editing which didn't draw you from scene to scene, and a heavily signposted script - but intend to try episode two as openmindedly as possible...

But I really wonder who it's aimed at - just a card played in a government funding game?
What could its function be today, a 6-episode BBC1 "Classic Serial"...? As a dilettantish pleasure or whimsical disappointment for those who know the book well, ticking off the points of its redactive success or failure as they go; or a kind of introduction to a literary masterpiece for those, like myself, who haven't read it; or is it intended to function as an autonomous drama (which personally I think it HAS to) whether you know the book or not? If "all of the above", especially the latter, then - it would need to be quite a lot longer, surely!
(The 6-episode Wolf Hall (BBC2) was a televisual masterpiece, but perhaps a rule-proving exception..)

Remember the seemingly-endless Forsyte Saga? Or those luxuriously-produced-and-detailed Granada productions of Jewel in The Crown, Brideshead Revisited? THAT kind of depth-and-breadth, the talents and resources to create true "televisual novels", seems (with the notable exception of the privatisation-threatened C4) only to be found on satellite or streaming services now, but largely in original drama or those based on recent fictions, like The Wire, True Detective, Game of Thrones, Mad Men (poached by Sky from BBC4, who've done nothing like it since...).

I wonder what the BBC would think if Sky Atlantic decided to do a 20-part Brothers Karamazov... or a 12-episode Adventures of Augie March...

[EdgeleyRob]

I've been there. There were frozen roses on his grave, which struck me as very poetic somehow. It was only November, but snowing. Petipa was there as well, and I think Glinka - I can't quite remember now.

IIRC Borodin,Glinka,Mussorgsky,Balakirev and Dostoyevsky (and more ?) are also buried in the various Nevsky Monastery cemeteries.
Better to visit St Petersburg in August IMO !

[jayne lee wilson]

I thought Andrew Davies came across well on Newsnight tonight (or last night by the time you read this ) wry and selfaware: cut the book up (literally...), carry it around, cut out the obvious (many and apparently er, lengthy) boring bits, sex sells shows, etc...

The clips from later episodes looked more.... visually inviting, at least... still wish there were 12 of them though, to inspire a little more...character-empathy .... and AD probably does too.

Hang on in there...!

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought Andrew Davies came across well on Newsnight tonight (or last night by the time you read this )

Thanks jayne, didn't know about this.

Starts at 33' 10" here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...night-07012016

[Richard Tarleton]

And thank you jayne for your #33.

So I expect Pierre's interest in Freemasonry which I seem to remember went on for a few hundred pages will get short shrift from AD....

[Mary Chambers]

Better to visit St Petersburg in August IMO !

Oh, no. It ought to snow in St Petersburg. I was delighted!

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh, no. It ought to snow in St Petersburg. I was delighted!

Oh me too! Was there through the first few weeks of December. Cold when we arrived, the temps plummeted one night and the place became an icy, snowy wonderland. The hotel room overlooked the Battleship Aurora on the Neva, which was liquid till that night; when we awoke, people were walking across it...

[Anna]

Not about W&P but on Wednesday BBC2 was the start of a new 3 part series about the Romanov dynasty by Lucy Worsley. Typical LW that it involved a lot of showing off and dressing up (which is quite unnecessary and wastes time which could be devoted to informative aspects) but it was very interesting about the founding/building of St. Petersburg. This episode finished with death of Peter the Great, next is Catherine the Great, 1805, Napoleon and all that.

[Petrushka]

Oh me too! Was there through the first few weeks of December. Cold when we arrived, the temps plummeted one night and the place became an icy, snowy wonderland. The hotel room overlooked the Battleship Aurora on the Neva, which was liquid till that night; when we awoke, people were walking across it...

I was in Leningrad in the first week of December too (in 1979). I'd gone along to hear the LSO and Colin Davis give three concerts in Moscow then went to Leningrad where I heard La Traviata at the Kirov Opera. It was damn cold but magical. The shot of the Winter Palace (the Hermitage) you saw in War and Peace was pretty much as I saw it. Also went to the Piskaryov Cemetery where victims of the 900 day siege are buried. It was minus 10 that day and was snowing.

[Nick Armstrong]

I was in Leningrad in the first week of December too (in 1979). I'd gone along to hear the LSO and Colin Davis give three concerts in Moscow then went to Leningrad where I heard La Traviata at the Kirov Opera. It was damn cold but magical. The shot of the Winter Palace (the Hermitage) you saw in War and Peace was pretty much as I saw it. Also went to the Piskaryov Cemetery where victims of the 900 day siege are buried. It was minus 10 that day and was snowing.

Yes, same here. (Did you have the final movement of Tchaikovsky 6 on a loop on the speakers in the Cemetery...?)

My cultural equivalent was a Petrushka / Sacre du Printemps double-bill at the Mali theatre in Leningrad, plus the Leningrad Phil playing Rachmaninov 2 under Mariss Jansons' dad Arvid. Imagine coming out into the snow and ice after that lot... unforgettable.

Back to W&P - episode 2 was pretty compelling I thought.

Anyone know which battle it was - and which Tsar it was who was supposed to have overruled Kutusov?

[Historian]

Anyone know which battle it was - and which Tsar it was who was supposed to have overruled Kutusov?

Austerlitz, 1805; sometimes called Napoleon's masterpiece. The Tsar was Alexander I who historically overruled Kutuzov's sensible plan to retreat. This would have moved the Allies closer to supporting troops, as well as lengthening the French supply lines during a winter campaign.

I found the treatment of the battle a bit underwhelming but it did give some idea of the brutality and terror.

[Richard Tarleton]

Austerlitz, 1805. The Tsar was Alexander I.

I found the battle a bit underwhelming but it did give some idea of the brutality and terror.

Yes that was the shorthand version of Austerlitz but it captured the essentials - the Russians had occupied a hill (the Pratzen) which had been deliberately vacated by Napoleon to lure them into doing just that. They then fell into Napoleon's trap by committing the bulk of their forces to an attack on Napoleon's right flank (he had positioned only smaller forces where the enemy could see them) - the programme captured the Russian descent into thick fog very well. Then, when the allies had more or less abandoned their centre on the hill (where Kutuzov had rightly said they should wait, to let Napoleon make the first move), the fog lifted and Napoleon attacked it. The Russians and Austrians mounted a desperate counter attack, in vain, and finally many of them tried to flee over the frozen meres on the south side of the Pratzen. The French artillery then directed its fire onto the ice, smashing it - 2000 Austrians and 30 guns simply sank into the lakes. Napoleon lost 9000 men to the Allies' 15,000, and took 11,000 prisoners. Different battles, different strokes, but the contrast with Wellington's tactics at Waterloo (whilst waiting for more allies to arrive) could not be starker.

David Chandler's 1100-page "The Campaigns of Napoleon" was first published the year I took my history A level

As ever, Tolstoy spends a good deal of time on the personalities of Kutuzov, Bagration and the fey Alexander - this has to be captured on TV by, er, acting. Not badly either - Bagration has been rather brushed over (the excellent Pip Torrens has had just a couple of lines) but I think we got the general idea.

[aeolium]

I too would have liked to see and hear more of Bagration, RT. I think the military men are generally better cast than most of the main characters - Torrens as Bagration, Brian Cox very good as Kutuzov e.g. Even the usually excellent Jim Broadbent does not seem quite right as the old Bolkonsky - not really frightening enough imv (as he was in the first BBC adaptation and even more so in the Bondarchuk film).

I remember enjoying this BBC radio adaptation (strangely broadcast throughout New Year's Day 2015) much more, not least because of the stronger cast:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/X1nNDRM1VBtqzDm377PSLq/war-and-peace-cast-list

There's a review of it by no other than David Nice here:

http://www.theartsdesk.com/tv/war-and-peace-bbc-radio-4