I went to see Anna Karenina, the newest cinematic adaptation of the literary masterpiece by Lev Tolstoy, with Keira Knightley as Anna. I have read the book several times: as a teenager first, though I confess I did not understand it so well back then, and then again a few more times in later years. I also saw the movie with the great Greta Garbo as Anna and I remember sobbing non-stop during the film and afterwards, every time I remembered the tragic scene of Anna's suicide.
This film is absolutely stunning, it was a stroke of genius to set it in a theatre - how ironic, considering that Tolstoy thought, in a Platonic fashion, that the Theatre was bad. Beautiful costumes, beautiful music, beautiful choreography (by Sibi Ladbi Cherkaoui) beautiful photography: the film is stylised in the extreme. Tom Stoppard managed to cull out of the thousand pages novel all the most significant moments, Joe Wright's direction is superb. Jude Law as Karenin gives an outstanding performance, Vronsky as a character is a bit flat, Keira Knightley manages to bring out some intensity, despite her irritating mannerisms. I loved Kitty and Levin and the scene in which a newly married, virginal Kitty, without a thought for the strict conventions of society, nurses Levin's very ill brother together with his outcast common law wife. It's a scene almost straight out of Caravaggio's Deposition from the cross, with the two women washing the dying man's naked body to the sound of a very haunting melody.
If there is a problem with this film it's that it is so beautifully crafted and so stylised that somehow it takes away the intense emotion. I could not cry for Anna, instead I found myself looking at the folds of her beautiful red silk dress as she jumped under the train: everything in that scene was beautifully composed, the view of the train, the smoke, the red silk contrasting against the blackness of the huge wheels. There dies Anna, I thought, and her despair, in all that beauty, seemed very unreal, I felt quite detached from it.
The passion and raw emotion of the black and white 1930s - 1940s versions was not there - Vivien Leigh was another unforgettable Anna in the 1948 adaptation. But those films were about Anna, everything and everyone else was secondary. This film is more true to the complexity of Tolstoy's novel, it does give a sense of what he was writing about - Anna is an important character but the novel is not about her, it is about his disenchantement with the values of Russian society of his time and his exploration of love in all its facets.
But the film for me raises an important question about art and aesthetics: does excessive beauty kill emotion?
I'd have to watch that scene to get a better sense of what you're saying. But I think I get what you're going at. It sounds like the direction was to juxtapose the pretty with the ugly, and somehow missed the mark.
ReplyDeleteI guess the question I have is the definition of "beauty". Terribly sad things can also be beautiful. They don't always have to be pretty. I'm finding it hard to imagine beauty being a hindrance to emotion, at least in the sense that something could be so beautiful that it overpowers the emotional experience. But I can see beautiful things used in a misappropriate way. For example, if the musical underscore in that scene was "Halleluiah" From Handel's "Messiah", the music would still be beautiful, but it wouldn't match the emotion of the moment.
It sounds like something was mismatched visually.
I do, however, now desperately want to watch the movie! How is it that I missed something Tom Stoppard?
I'm with Phydeau: Most people's definition of "beauty" is too narrow. Musicians know that a musical performance can be "perfect" in technique and tone but still lack true beauty--the beauty that comes from the players' hearts and reaches to the hearers'. And there is a great beauty in hearing a musical instrument played to its limits. Years ago I heard a broadcast of a recording of Gustav Holst's The Planets, with James Levine conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The first movement, Mars, is marked to be played *fff* "fortississimo" (as loud as possible) much of the time, and Maestro Levine didn't let the orchestra, especially the brass, get away with less than full power. (The Chicago Symphony brass players are legendary, both individually and as a section.) It was not conventionally "pretty," but it was absolutely gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteI also remember the movie Stage Beauty, set about the time women were first beginning to act leading roles that previously had been played by young men or boys. According to the film, most of the "boy actresses" played parts like Desdemona for mere "beauty," trying to "die beautifully" during the suffocation scene. But the first woman actress (in a masterful performance by Claire Danes) realizes that a woman would fight. So the climactic scene (for both the play and the movie) shows Desdemona's death in all its passion and ugliness--played to the limits by both Ms. Danes and Billy Crudup--and it is heart-stoppingly beautiful.
From what you say (I have never seen any of the Anna Karenina movies), Ms. Garbo and Ms. Leigh played Anna to their limits--but Stoppard, Ms. Knightley and crew only played for "stage beauty" and thus missed true beauty.
Thank you so much , both Phydeau and Jochanaan, your comments are very pertinent. I have been thinking further about this. I have been trying to link my train of thoughts to Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality and the simulacrum. This might help to gain a clearer perspective on this film. I am hoping to do a follow up post elucidating this newer position
ReplyDeleteOne of the exciting aspects of Anna Karenina the film, was the extraordinary filming and staging. The train rushing though an icy wasteland then pulling into the station, tour de force of visual playfulness and very powerful too. It demonstrates the power of film to visually jump from one location to another within the same take and still make sense, or be used to emphasise a moment of action.
ReplyDeleteNice photos by the way Mr Bigelow
Best
Hugh