Editing King Vidor (section)

===''War and Peace'' (1956)===
Contrary to his aesthetic aversion to adapting historical spectaculars, in 1955 Vidor accepted independent Italian producer [[Dino De Laurentis]]'s offer to create a screen adaption of [[Leo Tolstoy]]'s vast historical romance of the late-[[Napoleonic era]], ''[[War and Peace]]'' (1869).<ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 80: "...in his time [Vidor] had been offered...[but] made few real epics" turning down ''[[Ben Hur (1925 film)|Ben Hur]]'' and ''[[Gone with the Wind (film)|Gone with the Wind]]''.<br />Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 260: "Vidor must have been the only director to turn down both the 1925 and 1959 versions of [[Ben Hur novel|''Ben Hur'' novel]]."</ref><ref>Baxter, 1976 p, 80: Vidor "had made few real epics [in his career] but in the sixties [1960s] he accepted two of the then fashionable spectacles, both credible exercises in the contrast between man and nature."</ref> In the public domain, ''War and Peace'' was under consideration for adaption by several studios. Paramount Pictures and De Laurenti rushed the film into production before a proper script could be formulated from Tolstoy's complex and massive tale, requiring rewrites throughout the shooting. The final cut, at three hours, was necessarily a highly compressed version of the literary work.<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 300 And p. 302-303: "The epic sprawl of Tolstoy's novel...and the piecemeal script construction." <br />Baxter, 1976 p. 80: Author Leo Tolstoy's epic "was boiled down into four hours" though often cut in distribution "to less than three, mutilating what was already a condensed and simplified version" of the novel.</ref><ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 82: Vidor: "I would rather direct a battle scene with six thousand soldiers [than to] direct a love scene with two important stars…"<br />Cady, TMC: "it was in the public domain. No author royalties! David O. Selznick wanted to do it, [[Mike Todd]] wanted to do it, but the ultimate winner was Italian producer Dino De Laurentis…"<br />Thomson, 2007: "War and Peace has amazing spectacle...War and Peace in 208 minutes.</ref>

Tolstoy's themes of individualism, the centrality of family and national allegiance and the virtues of agrarian egalitarianism were immensely appealing to Vidor. He commented on the pivotal character in the novel, [[Pierre Bezukhov]] (played by [[Henry Fonda]]): "The strange thing about it is the character of Pierre is the same character I had been trying to put on the screen in many of my own films."
<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 302</ref> Vidor was unsatisfied with the choice of Henry Fonda for the role of Pierre, and argued in favor of British actor [[Peter Ustinov]]. He was overruled by Dino de Laurentis, who insisted that the central figure in the epic appear as a conventional romantic leading man, rather than as the novel's "overweight, bespectacled" protagonist. 
<ref>Thomson, 2007: "The producer, the late Dino de Laurentis, wanted Henry Fonda for box-office reasons; Vidor, on the other hand, wanted Peter Ustinov – overweight, anti-heroic, and very European. 'I think he would have given the film more stature,' said Vidor."<br />Cady, TMC: "For the overweight, bespectacled Pierre, the center of the novel, many names were thrown about including the most likely candidate Peter Ustinov, but after many compromises, Henry Fonda was cast in the part."</ref> Vidor sought to endow Pierre's character so as to reflect the central theme of Tolstoy's novel: an individual's troubled striving to rediscover essential moral truths. The superficiality of the script and Fonda's inability to convey the subtleties of Pierre's spiritual journey thwarted Vidor's efforts to actualize the film's theme. Recalling these interpretive disputes, Vidor remarked that "though a damn good actor... [Fonda] just did not understand what I was trying to say."
<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988: p. 66: Tolstoy's Pierre in War and Peace, to whom Vidor made central to his [1956] film." And p. 302-303: See detailed discussion on themes, and Fonda's performance. And p.306: "Vidor's [interpretive] conflicts with Fonda…" And p. 301 for quoted comment by Vidor on Fonda.<br />Baxter, 1976 p. 80: "...Henry Fonda's languid, puzzled Pierre…"<br />Gallagher, 2007: See Gallaghar for a presentation of these themes. "...his hero is only apparently heroic...Heroic pretensions are chimeras, born in alienation, desperation and sexual will-to-power: only by realizing our common lot within society and family can our lives hold any reason."</ref>
Vidor was delighted with the vitality of [[Audrey Hepburn]]'s performance as [[Natasha Rostova]], in contrast to the miscasting of the male leads.  His assessment of the centrality of Natasha is based in the process of her maturation: {{blockquote|"Natasha permeated [War and Peace's] entire structure as the archetype of womankind which she so thoroughly represents. If I were forced to reduce the whole story of War and Peace to some basically simple statement, I would say that it is a story of the maturing of Natasha. She represents, to me, the anima of the story and she hovers over it all like immortality itself."<ref>Gallagher, 2007: "It really founders on the crucial miscasting of the male leads, but Audrey Hepburn's perfect Natasha is diverting..."And Vidor quoted in full regarding Natasha. And: "[Hepburn's Natasha] is the locus of our empathy; through the star we experience the passions of life. We stare in wonder, at the world with the star and at the star, and a magical interplay breaks out – best achieved with Natasha."</ref>}}

Cinematographer [[Jack Cardiff]] devised one of the film's most visually striking sequences, the sunrise duel between Pierre (Henry Fonda) and Kuragin (Tullio Carminati), shot entirely on a sound-stage. Vidor performed second-production duties to oversee the spectacular battle reenactments and director [[Mario Soldati]] (uncredited) shot a number of scenes with the principal cast.<ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 82-83: "British cinematographer [[Jack Cardiff]]...is largely responsible of the film's most memorable scene, the duel in the snow between Pierre and Kuragin...more remarkable for the fact that the whole scene is shot on a soundstage..."</ref><ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 300</ref>

American audiences showed modest enthusiasm at the box-office, but ''War and Peace'' was well received by film critics. The movie was met with huge popular approval in the [[USSR]], a fact alarming to Soviet officials, coming as it did near the height of [[Cold War]] hostilities between America and Russia. The Soviet government responded in 1967 with its own heavily financed adaption of the novel, [[War and Peace (film series)]] (1967).<ref>Cady, TMC: "Critics praised the results but American audiences never warmed to it. Russian audiences, however, did and this version became a big hit in the Soviet Union, a great embarrassment to Soviet officials. This was at the height of the Cold War and surely the Americans could not be allowed to create the only movie version of the greatest Russian novel ever written..."<br /> "La classifica dei film più visti di sempre al cinema in Italia". movieplayer.it. January 25, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2019.<br />Durgnat and Simmon, 1988: p. 302"...the 1967 Soviet adaption...a mixture of sentimentality and superficial realism…"</ref>

''War and Peace'' garnered Vidor further offers to film historical epics, among these ''[[King of Kings (1961 film)|King of Kings]]'' (1961), (directed by [[Nicholas Ray]]) as well as a project to develop a script about the life of 16th Century Spanish author [[Miguel Cervantes]]. Vidor finally settled on the Old Testament story of [[Solomon and Sheba]], with [[Tyrone Power]] and [[Gina Lollobrigida]] tapped as the star-crossed monarchs. This would be Vidor's final Hollywood film of his career.<ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 84: "...producers offered Vidor a variety of epic subjects...King of Kings...Cervantes [but] in 1958 took on the unpromising of ''Solomon and Sheba'' (1959)...</ref>