'There remains the greatest of all novelists-for what else can we call the author of War And Peace? [Tolstoy's] senses, his intellect, are acute, powerful, and well nourished ... Nothing seems to escape him. Nothing glances off him unrecorded ... Every twig, every feather sticks to his magnet. He notices the blue or red of a child's frock; the way a horse shifts its tail; the sound of a cough; the action of a man trying to put his hands into pockets...

A titanic, awe-inspiring adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic tome in which the fates of three souls: the blundering, good-hearted Pierre; the heroically tragic Prince Andrei; and the radiant, tempestuous Natasha, collide amid the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. Employing a cast of thousands and an array of innovative camera techniques, the director conjures a sweeping vision of grand balls that glitter with rococo beauty and breathtaking battles that...