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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 09/10/2012 : 10:47:24
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To understand why Joe Wright and Tom Stoppard's film ultimately fails its source, it's vital to say a few words about Leo Tolstoy's intentions.
Set in the 3rd quarter of the 19th century, the novel of Anna Karenina is deliberately complex because it must explore the intricate connections between social and domestic politics - including widespread discontent with old order concepts of power, etiquette, and religion, and the fomenting of revolution.
Tolstoy himself acknowledged the contradiction of his own beliefs, which drove not only his conversion from profligate aristocrat to "Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist" [as described by biographers], but also flavoured the plots and characters of his fiction.
He was, after all, a consummate story-teller and trusted his readership to be as fascinated by the way his characters behave as he was. Telling his tale originally in serial form gave his audience two key experiences:
1. To get caught up in the personal passions of love and lust which they could identify with - whether from their own lives or from their fantasies.
2. The space to re-visit the socio-political context of change happening in front of their eyes.
In arguably his greatest novel, Anna Karenina, Tolstoy draws powerful contrasts between the decadence of centuries of Tsarist regimes and the emerging intensely moral intelligentsia of the rural poor.
He does this by separating out both aspects of his own personality in the characters of Anna's brother Stepan, called Steva, and his boyhood friend Levin, a new breed of landowner.
Anna and her brother are minor nobility from the Oblonsky family. She's a Princess, he's a Prince,married to the long-suffering but ultimately forgiving Darya [called Dolly]. Levin is the much less elevated boyhood friend of Stepan. He worries about his alcoholic brother, and tries to reconcile the success of his novelist half-brother.
Levin's ideological struggle to remain true to his beliefs becomes the barrier to his suit of Kitty, Dolly's younger sister. She, however, has her heart set on the handsome and cavalier Count Vronsky, a womanizing cavalry officer. And he becomes totally fascinated by Anna, in that "I've got to have her" way that characterizes lust at first sight.
Of course Anna - in a loveless marriage with Count Karenin - famously returns his passion, and their dual obsession is Tolstoy's instrument to engage readers in the social dilemmas, to more effectively question their own moral values.
For yes, the story is fundamentally a moral one, whose plot and character dilemmas wisely presaged the brand of social discontent that eventually resulted in rebellion against Tsarist rule, and an idealistic - though tainted - pursuit of the kind of socialist equality extrapolated from the teachings of Jesus Christ.
By diminishing the plot of Levin and Kitty, Wright and Stoppard have falsely presented Tolstoy's work. Which is partially explicable when you realize how right wing Stoppard is. Choosing to focus on Keira Knightley's Anna, Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Vronsky,and Jude Law's Karenin is, of course, a financial decision, proven by the casting of relatively unknown up-and-comers Alicia Vikander as Kitty and Domhnall Gleeson's Levin.
What the film does, however, is to present the material in a brilliant, gorgeously decorated package, that takes wholly justified liberties with cinematic story-telling. I mean in directorial, not script terms.
Melanie Oliver's witty editing, honed by her extensive television work, powers Wright's directorial choice to tell the story as a mixture of theatrical artifice and a darker, almost claustrophic intensity. This makes for not so much a surreal narrative as one which underlines the facets of human behavior -- whether bound by rigidity and convention or finding the freedom of self-regulation. And there's brilliant contrast, too, with the unstoppable world of mechanisation with a more humble, dependable conjunction with nature.
Last, but certainly not least, is the acting which is mighty fine throughout. It's a triumph for Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen as Steva, and especially Jude Law, as the betrayed Karenin. But I'm less convinced by Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Vronsky, and - [this is largely in the crafting of the character] - I can see little onscreen of why he should continue to profess love for Anna after his sexual conquest of her. What, apart from sex, do they actually have in common?
Her moral dilemma is clear and she rises to the challenge of presenting its effects on us. Personally, I don't find him sexually irresistible, but I'm willing to believe she does. No, the problem, which is a major one considering how truncated the story is, has to do with what sustains their post-coital relationship through years and tribulations.
I can see such a question might have been deliberate in order to spotlight the frivolity of the nobility. But unless we truly believe in the equality of their passion for each other beyond the sexual, we cannot care about its tragic consequences. One thing Tolstoy didn't write was a "Find 'Em, Fuck 'Em, Forget 'Em" flick!
So, in the end, well done ... but.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 09/10/2012 12:21:48 |
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Anna Karenina
