Word: napoleon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...seeming emptiness of his life, then discovering Rostov's beautiful daughter Natasha. That and the next six scenes depict, with a mixture of passion, intrigue and despair, the decadent social life of prewar Russia. The last six scenes are devoted to the French invasion of 1812. Napoleon struts nervously (to the accompaniment of diabolic fanfares in brass), while Russian Field Marshal Kutuzov praises the people and plots the invader's doom ("The beast will be wounded with all the strength of Russia"). There is little continuity in the libretto written by Prokofiev and his second wife. Prokofiev...
...rich-voiced singing of Soprano Makvala Kasrashvili as Natasha and Baritone Yuri Mazurok as Andrei -lay in the company's willingness to take War and Peace for what it is and never what it is not. It is an epic; but unlike the heroes of Verdi or Wagner, Napoleon and Kutuzov never meet face to face, nor do we ever see Andrei suffer his fatal wound, nor can Natasha save him. But although War and Peace is no lyric drama, Prokofiev is capable of remarkably delicate touches, like the soft rasping of strings that evoke the delirium of Andrei...
...bigger and better things. Already he's planning a re-enactment of Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic on the 50th anniversary of that feat in 1977. But that's a mere stunt compared to his ultimate fantasy. "I'd love to do Napoleon's retreat from Russia," he says. "Wouldn't that...
...warmongers. The movie opens with Boris in prison awaiting execution ("I go at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning. I was supposed to go at 5 but I have a smart lawyer.") The plot itself is only quaintly wacky. A series of mishaps culminates in an assasination attempt on Napoleon's life, a tiresome case of mistaken identities is thrown in, and Boris finally trails off behind the Angel of Death in a flap-happy parody of The Seventh Seal. Where Allen shines is not in slapstick situations but in soliloquies and banter duets. He and Sonia (Diane Keaton), an intellectual...
...treat of sleet. To relieve the chill, they engage in those favorite occupations of Russian novelists, the epistemological debate and the religious monologue. "Socrates is a man; all men are mortal; therefore all men are Socrates," concludes Boris. It is this kind of syllogism that moves him to assassinate Napoleon, an adventure that ends, of course, with the wrong man slain. No matter. A celestial sign appears and Boris trills: "I will run, not walk through the valley of the shadow of death. . . I will dwell in the house of the Lord for six months with an option...