49 replies to this topic

[Peter T Chattaway]

Those who feared that Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, The Soloist) was taking a turn for the popcorn crowd with Hanna can rest easy now: he's back to adapting classic and/or highbrow literature:

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Aaron Johnson Offered Leads In 'Savages' And 'Anna Karenina'
EXCLUSIVE: At a time when the Hollywood movie star landscape is being made over with new faces, Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson is cementing his place in this new order. He has been offered two lead roles in high profile films with strong scripts and A-list directors, in parts that have been pursued by all the young guys. I believe he'll do both films. . . .
Johnson has also been offered the romantic lead role alongside Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina, the adaptation of the Tolstoy classic tragic love story that has a script by Tom Stoppard and will be directed by Atonement helmer Joe Wright for Working Title. That film will likely shoot in the fall, so Johnson ought to be able to do both films. He also played the young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy.
Mike Fleming, Deadline.com, March 17

Jude Law in talks for 'Anna Karenina'
Aaron Johnson and Jude Law are in talks to join Keira Knightley in Working Title's "Anna Karenina," which Joe Wright will direct.
Tom Stoppard penned the adaptation; Working Title's Tim Bevan is producing.
In the title role of the Leo Tolstoy classic, Knightley will play a woman stuck in a loveless marriage who struggles with her attraction to a soldier. . . .
Project marks the third collaboration between Knightley and Wright; the first two, "Atonement" and "Pride and Prejudice," were also period pics.
The novel has already been adapted many times, including a 1997 Warner Bros. pic starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean. . . .
Variety, March 17

[Brian D]

My wife and I listened to the audiobook of Anna Karenina a couple years ago. It's truly fascinating as a novel in the way it explores the theme of marriage. Another thing I recall about it: I love the fact that it takes a very deep and unflinching look at the consequences of marital unfaithfulness. It is almost at times like a grisly dissection of the wages of sin as applied to adultery. There are very few modern filmmakers or writers, though, who could resist the temptation to glorify (and cast as heroic and sadly "beautiful"...) the adulterous relationship as Tolstoy was able to resist it. Hopefully, Joe Wright will preserve Tolstoy's deep and striking moral compass.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Keira Knightley's 'Anna Karenina' aims to break new ground
Still, the question remains: What can 21st century storytellers bring to the epic love story that filmmakers from a previous generation couldn't?
Wright thinks there are plenty of opportunities. He told 24 Frames that a key difference with his and Stoppard's version (the two have been meeting in recent weeks to hash out the story) has to do with expanding beyond the scope of the title character.
"The Garbo version focused very much on Anna's story," Wright said. "And what Tom has written is a kind of multi-stranded portrait of a community."
He and Stoppard of course also have to deal with a 21st century problem: Anna's affair, so daring and scandalous to 20th century eyes, might merit little more than a shrug in some circles today. . . .
Los Angeles Times, March 30

[Brian D]

I like their idea of making the new film of Anna Karenina about more than just Anna's character, as Tolstoy's work had added resonance from the whole-picture mosaic of different families and marriages existing parallel to one another. The work becomes deeper as you see all of the different marriages and realize that marriage is one of the grand themes of the story. This makes one consider the meaning of marriage and the implications of marriages that come in all shades of quality and depth.

[Persona]

She was OK with Tolstoy, I guess, but I'm unabashedly smitten by her 60s work with Godard.

[Tyler]

Persona, on 02 April 2011 - 03:12 PM, said:

She was OK with Tolstoy, I guess, but I'm unabashedly smitten by her 60s work with Godard.

Looking back through the thread, it appears the "she" is Keira Knightly. Which makes me confused.

[Persona]

I was trying to make a joke about Anna Karina. It didn't work.

[Ryan H.]

It would be nice if Tom Stoppard would finally write something for the screen as brilliant as his stage plays, but alas, this is the guy who gave us SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE.

[Anders]

Ryan H., on 03 April 2011 - 08:59 AM, said:

It would be nice if Tom Stoppard would finally write something for the screen as brilliant as his stage plays, but alas, this is the guy who gave us SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE.

I'm curious to hear your arguments against SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. It's a film I was initially resistant to, but have come to really love in the past decade or so.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Exclusive: Joe Wright “Waiting On” Saoirse Ronan & James McAvoy To Confirm For ‘Anna Karenina’
‘Hanna’ Director Says Benedict Cumberbatch & Kelly Macdonald Have Joined The Cast
The Playlist, April 6

[Brian D]

Saoirse Ronan. Keira Knightley. James McAvoy. Joe Wright. Perhaps this is actually Atonement 2...

Edited by Brian D, 07 April 2011 - 10:02 PM.

[NBooth]

Brian D, on 07 April 2011 - 10:00 PM, said:

Saoirse Ronan. Keira Knightley. James McAvoy. Joe Wright. Perhaps this is actually Atonement 2...

Not to mention Benedict Cumberbatch. Seriously, this guy's just leaping into prominence. Or perhaps that's the Sherlock fan in me talking.

[Overstreet]

Joe Wrong makes it official.

Wait, did I say Wrong? I meant Wright. Sorry. I can't imagine why I slipped up there.

[Tyler]

The updated cast:

Quote

Knightley will star as Anna, Jude Law will play her husband Aleksei Karenin, and Aaron Johnson (Nowhere Boy) will play Count Vronsky. Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Emily Watson, Olivia Williams and Ruth Wilson also have been cast in the story of a woman making her way in early-19th-century Russian high society.

There's an internet campaign against whitewashing Akira out there (i.e. casting non-Asians in ethnically Asian roles). Is there an equivalent term we could apply to this cast?

Edited by Tyler, 08 September 2011 - 04:12 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

[Peter T Chattaway]

[kenmorefield]

I think Keira Knightley is the bee's knees. Really I do. And I also think she is tremendously talented (see for example, A DANGEROUS METHOD). But there was not a single moment of ANNA KARENINA where I thought "that's Anna Karenina" instead of "that's Keira Knightley in period garb." I'm not sure if it is her fault or Tom Stoppard's, or both, but I did find myself wondering through much of the second half of the film whether or not they really understood the story in general and Tolstoy's Christianity in particular.

There is a stunningly beautiful moment between Lili and her husband (Constantine?), but i"m hard pressed to believe Stoppard or Wright understood it from the inside out. It sure feels to me like they want to contrast Karenin's religion with Anna's idolization of love. That strikes me as too modern a reading...something I'd expect out of Twilight rather than Joe Wright.

My heaven's what a soul Leo Tolstoy must have been. To think seriously and take seriously the Bible as more than just words and understand/imagine the depths of pain from fallenness is evidenced and experience in more than just the sordid...sometimes it is the recognition of what we are in comparison to what we are capable of in comparison to what we are called to be.

P.S. It's a beautiful film to look at--and this from the guy who thought ATONEMENT too self-consciously, "look at me" pretty. Anna's and Vronsky's waltz is right up there with Levant's break dance in Beau Travail. But still, the film frustrated me more than it delighted me.

P.P.S. I can't remember ever being this impressed with Jude Law. Terrific performance.

Edited by kenmorefield, 15 November 2012 - 11:52 PM.

[Overstreet]

kenmorefield, on 15 November 2012 - 11:45 PM, said:

It sure feels to me like they want to contrast Karenin's religion with Anna's idolization of love. That strikes me as too modern a reading...something I'd expect out of Twilight rather than Joe Wright.

I knew it. I knew it. That's exactly the reason I skipped the screening on Wednesday night. I didn't want to give up a whole evening to be bothered by exactly that.

[Christian]

Ken, I haven't read the book (shame on me!) and found myself marveling at how moral the story is, even as I wondered what they'd done to muck it up. Best I could figure -- and I think I'd read this somewhere before seeing the film -- they never presented much reason for why Anna engaged in the affair. Apparently the book better lays out her frustrations with her husband. But is that a contemporary reading of the book? Is this a novel that continues to have relevance because it's seen as speaking to both traditionalists and to modern-day feminists (or something like that)? In other words, do some fans of the novel celebrate Anna's unfaithfulness as somehow true to the character? I got the sense that Tolstoy sides with the husband, but maybe I'm way off on that. Or maybe public tastes/moods have shifted while still finding elements of the story to embrace, regardless of Tolstoy's intent.

I realize much has been written on the novel. I haven't explored any of it.

Anyway, regardless of why Anna takes up with Vronsky, the film has that beautiful reconciliation scene (I'm guessing that's the scene you're referring to) and then goes on for a long time afterward -- after I thought it would have been over. Not so, and nothing against the film that it defied my expectations on that count. I just wasn't prepared for the subsequent turn, and all the ramifications thereof.

Apparently the story of Levin (?) and Kitty has gotten short shrift in earlier film adaptations. If that's true, then the inclusion of that storyline, which shows honorable and noble behavior in contast to Anna's behavior (and her husband's to some extent, although I'm less clear on that), then this Anna Karenina is the one to see. There's so much to admire in that storyline. I loved it.

Overall, I think I'm much more favorable toward the film than you are, but as you can see, I went in without any preconceptions of what the story should be based on the book. I'm not sure what to think of it as an adaptation. Chiefly, I was put off by the theatrical staging business, which struck me as unnecessary, if at times visually arresting.

[kenmorefield]

Christian, on 16 November 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

Ken, I haven't read the book (shame on me!) and found myself marveling at how moral the story is, even as I wondered what they'd done to muck it up.

Christian, I've read parts of the book, but I don't know that I've ever plowed through the whole thing. (I have read other Tolstoy.) I mention that only because, given the expansion of the literary canon in the 80s and 90s, the notion that cultural literacy demands that there are certain books that everyone should have read ("shame on me") is one that doesn't have much traction with me. Shame, perhaps, for me, but not on me.

Christian, on 16 November 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

Anyway, regardless of why Anna takes up with Vronsky, the film has that beautiful reconciliation scene (I'm guessing that's the scene you're referring to) and then goes on for a long time afterward --

Actually the scene I was thinking of was the one in which

Spoiler

Lili tends to and bathes her husband's brother. I don't have a window into Stoppard's head, but it comes across to me as designed to make Lili a parallel to Anna rather than a foil for her. The husbands have religion/duty, they have love [Anna, physical; Lili, spiritual]. But I think the broader contrast in this scene is not how Lili chooses love over legalism but how that couple's choices sanctify and redeem the other's. Lili's actions show not that her husband's love, grounded in religious duty is wrong but how it is incomplete. Conversely, the tendency to think about/idolize love outside the context of duty, honor, commitment, does not elevate or protect Anna, and one gets the sense that Lili might have been vulnerable to Anna's fate (she being attracted to Vronsky initially). His sense of duty channels elevates her spiritual sense of giving rather, which strikes me as higher and truer than simply saying she is on a higher plane and closer to the truth than is/are all the people who talk in religious terms.

I was not particularly bothered by the notion that Anna's infatuation was not overly explained through dialogue. I thought the dance communicated that perfectly, albeit metaphorically, without words being necessary. I did find the post-recovery scenes to be meandering and hard to understand in the context of the film alone. I felt like I was watching a prequel to THE DEEP BLUE SEA. Anna's insistence in these scenes that Vronsky doesn't love her because she gives "everything" and he doesn't is clear enough, but I feel like the second half vacillates between a thesis that love is selfish and so Anna is the victim of being the only one who truly loves (blech) and the deeper truth that Anna (like all humans) is selfish and can, in fits and starts be horrified at her selfishness...that the Idolization of love is, or can be, the using of a false idol to try to justify one's own sinfulness but can't ever totally eradicate the pangs of conscience.

Edited by kenmorefield, 16 November 2012 - 09:35 AM.