Left to myself when it comes to watching TV of an evening lately, I’ve rather amused myself by watching shows and series which bored my daughter, and unsettled Wee Jamie … the series Cadfael, for instance – appeared to give Jamie bad dreams for some unfathomable reason, so we switched to comic fare like Malcolm in the Middle and Home Improvement. Having watched the whole run of Downton Abbey, my next choice fell to the recent British produced miniseries of War & Peace. Yes, the series based on the interminable epic novel (epic meaning omigawd it’s long! Even longer than Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, or Prousts’ In Search of Lost Time).

The-then Soviets made an epic movie of the novel in the 1960s – and it was also an epic production, as national cultural pride was at stake! The resulting production took years of shooting, thousands of extras, and a fortune in costs; apparently entire museums were emptied of authentic bits and bobs in order to duplicate that period in Russian history. The movie eventually made it to American television – the Wikipedia article says that it aired in four parts in the late summer of 1972. A vision of historical splendor, even in black and white on a small screen. I thought it had aired a few months earlier, as I distinctly recall that I was still in high school when I watched it on TV, and I would have graduated by that time. Anyway – much enjoyed the Russian movie version, especially as every one of the cast were total unknowns to me, and so they were entirely subsumed into the characters that they played.

In fact, I enjoyed the movie so much that I willingly sat down and read the whole book, of my own free will – a not inconsiderable reading project for anyone. I confessed to skimming over the long philosophical discussions between characters; the family and societal dynamics, the sweep of historical events were all quite riveting enough. Although – when I watched some excerpts from the Russian movie version recently, I realized that the two male leads playing Pierre and Prince Andre were way too old for the roles they played. I see now that the actors in the more recent British series are much more age-appropriate. Pierre is supposed to be an earnest, slightly gullible nerd, and his best pal Prince Andre is the handsome yet troubled romantic. And Lily Allen was apparently the go-to ingenue actress when it came to doing flighty and silly young things. Anyway, aside from thinking some of the female costumes are a bit over the edge … really, a single-shoulder and sleeveless afternoon gown? Taking the ancient Greek fashion a bit too far? Well, the character wearing it is supposed to be …. Questionable in virtue and practically everything else so … looking forward to the rest of the series.