The peculiarity of the musical and sound continuum in the epic "War and Peace" by Sergei Bondarchuk

Ivashchenko Tat'yana Sergeevna PhD in Cultural Studies Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Humanities, Yugra State University 628012, Russia, Tyumen region, Khanty-Mansiysk, Chekhov str., 16, office 240/2 2012.it@bk.ru

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of cinema in the life of a modern person. The transition from verbal to audiovisual perception of the world is associated with the development of new technologies and the corresponding transformation of our consciousness, which increasingly tends to visually "read" reality. It is no coincidence that the most acute problem of age psychology is the formation of the so-called "clip consciousness" of adolescents. Simultaneous comprehension and assimilation of information is supported by an appropriate video sequence. It is no coincidence that today various techniques of audiovisual commenting on the studied material are increasingly used in education. Films are becoming an integral part of the process of mastering the program courses in the humanities, especially history and literature. In this regard, the question becomes relevant – are we ready to perceive the film in its entirety as a director's idea? Is it necessary to teach how to watch and understand works of cinema?

The initiative to make the course "the history of Russian cinema" as important in the education system as the study of literature was expressed in the instruction of the President of the Russian Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture of Russia in January 2021.  Today we can already talk about the first results of the execution of this order. For example, back in September 2018, a joint educational project of the Department of Education and Science of the City of Moscow and the Metropolitan Department of Culture "Moscow Cinema at School" was launched, with the support of the City Methodological Center and Moskino. The aim of the project is to study the heritage of Russian cinema in the framework of the implementation of basic general education programs, as well as the formation of audience culture, respect and interest in the achievements of Russian cinema. At the end of the 2022/2023 academic year, more than 400 educational organizations in Moscow participated in the project. ^[1]

But with all the optimistic results, the most difficult question remains – how to teach how to perceive the fullness of the director's idea? As an example of discussing the topic, it is proposed to pay attention to the genre of film adaptation, which is so popular in the modern educational space.

This article offers a partial analysis of the sound continuum of the most famous Russian film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel "War and Peace" to the Russian audience. The choice is not accidental, because very often the school study of classical literature is complemented by watching film versions. Moreover, television interpretations are increasingly being used. Among the latter, we will name the television screening of Tolstoy's epic novel by the international cooperation of cinematographers from Russia, Italy, Germany, France, Poland, Spain and the USA under the leadership of Robert Dornhelm (2007) and the 2016 version of the BBC television company, where there are plenty of plot liberties. Therefore, the choice of Russian film classics as an example is not accidental, but fundamental.

Being an important component of audiovisual synthesis, sound not only gives the visual nature of the film additional spectra of the embodiment of a single idea, but also creates a special unique environment of film production – its acoustic aura. Both the first frames and the first sounds can determine the future style of the film, and the organicity of its embodiment.

Almost from the very beginning of the era of sound cinematography, overcoming illustrativeness and sound duplication of images has become one of the most important principles of sound engineering. By the middle of the twentieth century, such definitions as "sound editing", "sound close-up", "acoustic landscape", "sound influx", "sound symbols, metaphors", etc. were firmly included in the dictionary of directors.

In this regard, the domestic film adaptation of L. N. Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" (1962-1967) is of particular interest. The time of creation of this epic, exceptional in its scale, embodies the "point of balance" in the history of cinema in terms of the implementation of the audiovisual concept. On the one hand, the early 1960s, especially in Soviet cinema, was still a time of "grand style", when a certain result of the preceding post–war decade was summed up.  At the same time, the "scrapping of epochs" began with the serious "reassessment of values" inherent in all cardinal changes. A new generation is coming to the cinema, ready to accept the challenge of the time, to open new horizons of cinematic searches.

It is no coincidence that the main struggle for the right to film the epic novel by Leo Tolstoy unfolded between the venerable and recognized luminary of Russian cinema, the head of the organizing committee of the USSR Cinematographers Union and, in fact, the owner of Mosfilm Ivan Alexandrovich Pyriev and practically the novice director Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk.

A famous film actor, by this time already a People's Artist of the USSR, in his first directorial film "The Fate of Man" he vividly embodied the author's multifaceted view on the topic of war. It is important to note that in 1959, along with Bondarchuk's film debut, the American version of "War and Peace" directed by King Vidor (1956) was released in the domestic film distribution.Moreover, at the end of the year, "The Fate of Man" is ranked fifth, and the foreign version of Leo Tolstoy's novel is ranked tenth! The wide recognition and high appreciation of Sergei Bondarchuk's first film largely determined the director's desire to continue the theme of a man caught in the cycle of life and death in cinema. Leo Tolstoy's epic novel "War and Peace" attracted the director in many ways with the potential for further development of the theme of war and peace in a universal way. "Making this film became more than a 'creative plan' for me. More than a dream. This became the goal of my life" ^{[2, p. 152]}, – admitted Sergey Fedorovich.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the genre of film adaptation of literary works became one of the central ones not only in Russian, but also in world cinema. The use of classical literary works as a scenario basis gave a sense of the integrity of the dramatic narrative and the psychological depth of the images. The subjects of Russian literature, marked by the complexity and inconsistency of the worldview, are particularly popular with directors from different countries. Film adaptations of the works of M. F. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, as well as foreign classics, are becoming a characteristic sign of the time.

In general, the "sixties" marked a serious turn towards a reflexive beginning. The themes of existential search, related to the expression of a personal attitude to the world, the problems of good and evil, come to the fore. The hero in a complex, conflicted, spiritless world becomes the dominant of new aspirations. The affirmation of the importance of universal human values leads to a rethinking of such basic concepts as "people", "nation", "religion", which have brought to the fore the problem of individual ethical choice. The categories of morality acquire an acute ideological meaning and become socially significant.

It was at the time of the formation of this paradigm in 1962 that the decision was made to create a domestic film version of the novel "War and Peace". Thus, both the tasks set and the level of reading of Leo Tolstoy's epic work were in line with experimental aspirations. Perhaps it is the understanding of the need to open new horizons that explains the choice of Sergei Bondarchuk as a director, who by that time harmoniously combined status and the desire to carry out a complex super task at a new level.

The initial period of the film group's formation was controversial. So, the creative union of director and cameraman Vladimir Monakhov, who shot Sergei Bondarchuk's previous film "The Fate of Man", was not destined to develop. Soon, cameramen Alexander Shelenkov and Chen-Yu-Lan, who shot the scenes of the battle of Shengraben and Pierre's duel, leave the film crew. The more significant is the appearance of composer Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov in the team, who at that time was still a graduate student of the Moscow Conservatory, and with a very difficult fate. It is enough to mention the expulsion from the conservatory, the time of wandering, the help of Natalia Petrovna Konchalovskaya and the Mikhalkov family, the exclusion from the ranks of the Komsomol, which did not prevent him from later becoming twice a laureate of the Lenin Prize, and then the Moscow Komsomol.

The story of Vyacheslav Alexandrovich's statement in such an important film for the history of Russian cinema is very dramatic. In addition to Ovchinnikov, the candidacies of Dmitry Shostakovich, Georgy Sviridov, Tikhon Khrennikov and Aram Khachaturian were considered as possible options. And Dmitry Kabalevsky, realizing the seriousness and complexity of the work ahead, suggested using fragments of Sergei Prokofiev's opera of the same name adapted for the cinematic variant in the film.

Of course, one could assume that Sergei Bondarchuk wanted to see a young like-minded person ready to follow him, and not a venerable composer, who, against his will, "presses" on the director with his authority. The energy of youth was literally accumulated by the director. For example, both screenwriter Vasily Solovyov and chief cameraman Anatoly Petritsky were barely in their thirties at that time. The version about Ovchinnikov's subordinate role in the process of making the film is refuted by the fact that the director's plan for the key scene of Natasha's feather ball was completely redone by the director to the music proposed by the composer. And many participants in the film process recall the amazing exactingness of Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov as a conductor, his willingness to defend every note, every sound. He could ruthlessly destroy most of the music he had already written and approved if something did not suit him. But, most likely, the decisive factor for collaboration was the director's desire for a new, non-illustrative "film reading" of Tolstoy's novel, and here it was necessary to take risks in terms of musical and acoustic experiments.

It was music that in many ways became the key to the film reading of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace". But the fact that there are practically no scores of cinematic fragments today speaks volumes. As Elena Chernikova notes ^[3], at one time the archive of the State Orchestra of Cinematography was destroyed, where the only copies of notes and orchestral voices of musical numbers that did not fit into the film were stored. And in the early nineties, Vyacheslav Alexandrovich learned the terrible news that the old archive no longer exists, since it was destroyed years ago. Accordingly, there is no detailed analysis of the musical theme, its origin and mode of existence in the film by Sergei Bondarchuk. Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov's work in the film "War and Peace" is a bygone musical and acoustic Atlantis, not fully explored and partially forgotten. Although what was done by the composer for this film adaptation cannot be verbally described. This is creativity that is not limited only to making music. Conducting talent, impeccable sound dramatic thinking in the trends of experimental and innovative searches of time, complex mixes of musical timbres, natural noises and synthetic electronic acoustics express the fullness of the composer's creative talent.

The selfless dedication to the idea of the film adaptation of the great novel makes Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov's work unique in its own way. Suffice it to say that he wrote about thirteen hours of music, while the film included no more than five. The payment was also represented by the norm – 31 minutes of film music for a full-length film. The rest is a gift from the composer. Ovchinnikov practically lived at Mosfilm at that time, working in parallel with "War and Peace" on the music for the film "Andrei Rublev" by Andrei Tarkovsky (1966), "A Long Happy Life" by Gennady Shpalikov (1966), "The First Teacher" (1965) and "The Noble Nest" (1969) by Andron Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky. The list of films so diverse in subject matter and genres testifies to the boundless possibilities of the young composer. After all, these are not only different musical and cinematic worlds, but also different principles of the existence of music in the cinematic space.

The need to overcome all historically developed techniques of illustrative film music has become Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov's creative credo. The innovative approach to the film adaptation of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy's epic was not limited only to writing music. Sound clusters, a certain metaphorical and symbolic use of timbres are of great importance for the acoustic content of the film. No less important place in the creation of audiovisual unity is occupied by noises or their absence.

In this regard, the work of sound engineers Yuri Mikhailov and Igor Urvantsev was an unconditional hit. Even in music, especially in its sonorous and experimental part, the importance of their creative approach to the use of sounds is palpable. It is quite interesting that the principle of "violated expectations" is applied in terms of sound engineering. Scenes on the eve of battles, discussion of the commander-in-chief's fateful decisions for history, a conversation in the first series of Prince Andrew and Kutuzov about the upcoming battle, or the announcement of the decision to leave Moscow, other dramaturgically nodal scenes are often served against the background of the most prosaic natural noises. The scene of Nikolai Rostov's flight from the field of the battle of Shengraben is very indicative in this regard. The horror of such a possible and senseless death is conveyed not by a musical theme, which is quite appropriate in the previous system of cinematic illustrativeness, but by the sounds of grass rustling underfoot and the crackle of broken shrub branches, through which Nikolai struggles in an instinctive desire to hide from the enemy. It is precisely such natural noises, familiar to every person, that come into sharp dissonance with the absurdity and cruelty of war, its senseless murders.

The sound universe of the film also incorporated the intonationally modulated speech of the actors. Moreover, the free changeable pace of the conversation gives special expressiveness to the dialogues. There is no dense information saturation and constant speech activity inherent in the American film adaptation of King Vidor. By this time, the on-screen speech style had already changed significantly. It has become more natural and diverse. The timbre relationship of Pierre (Sergei Bondarchuk) and Prince Andrew (Vyacheslav Tikhonov) can be considered a special success. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in some scenes, Sergei Bondarchuk reads offscreen monologues of Prince Andrew or comments on them (for example, thinking about possible death before the Battle of Borodino). In dialogical scenes, the characters have fundamentally different speech style: dryly laconic (like graphics) in Prince Andrew and more intonationally amorphous, sometimes with indefinite interrogative endings in Pierre (like watercolor). The combination of timbre affinity and intonation diversity make these images complementary.

It is no less interesting to use the expressive possibilities of foreign language – French and German – speech in the film adaptation. It is noteworthy that at the beginning of the first series, dialogues in French in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer are accompanied by a voiceover translation, which is read by Sergei Bondarchuk. In the future, the sound of foreign speech in rather detailed scenes will be accompanied by subtitles, leaving room for perception of a phonetic and intonation system different from the Russian language. And here, too, the director treated the acoustic phonetic side of the film extremely responsibly. Impeccable classical pronunciation in the "French" scenes was made possible thanks to the actors of the Paris Atelier theater, invited to voice the film. In the domestic cinema of the sixties, the presence of large dialogic scenes in a foreign language without simultaneous translation was a very bold technique, and this also shows the experimental beginning of this film adaptation.

But the greatest success in the variety of speech was the voiceover monologues, which, like a "circulatory system", permeate the film, filling it with life. These are not only intimate reflections of the characters about themselves, life and death, good and evil, helping to reveal the secret of characters and deeds. The director's voice is voiced by the famous spring oak, and a seasoned wolf in the hunting scene. A significant part of the events, thanks to off–screen monologues, is interpreted through Pierre's worldview, but even more so by the director himself, who became the writer's alter ego. That is why the trinity is so important – the director, the writer, the main character – expressed by the voiceover of Sergei Bondarchuk. This is a prologue and epilogue, comments on all historically important events, including the fateful decisions of Kutuzov. A significant part of the monologues is devoted to the participants of the fighting – Russian soldiers and officers. Even Napoleon's monologue "This sacred capital!" before entering Moscow was voiced in a legendary voice. Sometimes it seems that the director has become a kind of evangelical narrator, who translates the novel into a supra-event level of existence, making us "eternal contemporaries" of this already non-historical image- memory.

Concluding the analysis of the musical and sound continuum of S. Bondarchuk's film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", it is necessary to note once again the amazing polyphony of audiovisual expressiveness.  The diversity of musical and acoustic textures, timbres and themes fill the film with incredible vitality. The interaction of various techniques – parallels, metaphorical generalizations, contrasts, violated expectations, quotations, allusions, etc. – give rise to a complex fusion of realism and mythopoetics, sound traditionalism and extremely daring experimentation.

A lot has been said about the enormous material and human resources invested in the domestic production. We can say that the producers here were the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. But it is important to take into account the dedication with which the members of the film group worked. Initially, the main condition for participation in the film adaptation was readiness for such redundancy in terms of spending one's strength, emotions, and time. It has already been mentioned about the colossal processing in the process of creating music by Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov. It should also be remembered that the film, on the instructions of the Ministry of Culture, was shot on Soviet film in principle. Sometimes tens of meters were defective, and it was necessary to reshoot the most difficult psychological and battle scenes. The overexertion of forces associated with the production process cost Sergei Bondarchuk clinical death on the set and strenuous subsequent rehabilitation with no less risk to life.

The recording equipment also created many problems. The work of sound engineers in a six-channel stereo format in the absence of special serial audio equipment can be regarded as a feat. As Igor Mikhailovich Urvantsev recalls, according to a special project for the filming of "War and Peace", a tonwagen was created – a mobile studio, the equipment of which was a modified domestic recording equipment developed specifically for this epic. For example, MSU army installations were used as auxiliary equipment for sound amplification on huge areas of full-scale filming ^[4].

 The music was recorded on Mosfilm without intermediate information, "directly" on the remote control left after the nine-channel panoramic films, the production of which had already ended by that time. Therefore, to create special effects, it was necessary to come up with an original arrangement of microphones. Moreover, Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov took a direct part in this work along with sound engineers, which had the best effect on the final result.

Widescreen cinema, despite its technical imperfection and cost, has been solving the problems of stereo sound reproduction in domestic film production for quite a long time. But it is impossible to count on the perpetuity of any technology. Therefore, in the late 1990s, Mosfilm decided on a unique restoration of the national film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk. The film has been digitized in both visual and audio formats. The general management of the restoration of the epic was entrusted to the chief cameraman A.A. Petritsky. The happy combination of circumstances was complemented by the participation in this most difficult process of both sound production engineers - Yu.A. Mikhailov and I.M.Urvantsev.

Moreover, unique technologies were created again during the restoration process. So, for example, all the work was carried out not from the original material left at the copying factory in Kiev and practically unsuitable for restoration, but from the only countertype preserved in Sovexportfilm, originally intended for the replication of rolling copies. Accordingly, as a result of repeated exploitation, technical noises were added to the original soundtrack. It is also important to mention the fact that the existing countertype was one of the variants of the original source, since during the production of such epoch-making films, various versions are created for festivals, sales to foreign countries, etc. Already at the initial stage, numerous inconsistencies between the phonograms and their synchronous labels were revealed. For example, the wrong music, noises and other sound components. I had to carefully check each episode.

As a result of long-term storage, the Earth's magnetic field also had a bad effect on the sound state. To minimize the totality of technical noise during the restoration of the national epic "War and Peace", a program developed by specialists from the University of Cambridge for the vaults of the British Museum was used, designed, among other things, to work with magnetic phonograms. The main problem was that this program did not work "automatically". During the restoration of the original acoustic version of the film, a comprehensive discussion of each episode was conducted. The final solution was to "remove" only the obvious distortions, without affecting the basic material. Thus, this work can be compared with a careful careful restoration, leaving the original in the most authentic form.

It was equally important to define the modern format of the restored film. Interestingly, the directorate of Dolby Laboratories Inc not only supported the desire of Russian cinematographers to use the most widespread Dolby Digital format at that time, but also offered a license for half the cost, given the worldwide value of S.F. Bondarchuk's film.

The restoration work, unique in its complexity, was completed by 2000, and on July 26, the Moscow Udarnik cinema hosted, in fact, the premiere screening of the restored cinema masterpiece. Despite the dedication of all participants in this project, according to the chief cinematographer of the film A. A. Petritsky, the image quality of the updated version is inferior to what could have been obtained when printing from the original negative. Nevertheless, the film was practically saved from the imminent catastrophe of non-existence. Russian Russian film adaptation of the great Russian novel, shot by no less a great Russian director, was not released in a wide film distribution, but unlike the restored "Gone with the Wind" in the USA, which was released in 1998 and added more than five million to its already record collections.

To the credit of Yugra Film Distribution, it can be said that in September 2001, a restored large-scale four-part film was shown on the screen of the Cinema Center opened in Khanty-Mansiysk. It should be noted that at that time it was one of three cinemas in Russia with test equipment, designed, among other things, to assess the quality of restoration. Are we aware of these unique opportunities available to our moviegoers? Not all cinemas have the opportunity to fully appreciate the quality of not only the image, but also the sound.

Let's hope that the reason to return to the topic of popularizing the classics of Russian cinema will be a comprehensive program for the development of film education not only in the capital, but in all regions of Russia. After all, no television retrospective can replace watching a movie beloved by millions of Russian viewers on a big screen with good sound!