The writting of the following was interrupted and I lost of my train of thoughts. I contemplated an essay I really liked, but I hate to leave it uncompleted.
All Tragic Love Stories Are Alike
Movie Review – Anna Karenina
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ”
With this phrases, which is one of the most memorable openings among all the fictional stories ever written, Leo Tolstoy told a saga of an age old story, unexceptional in plot and result, but exceptional in detail and influence in one of his two great novels of all time, Anna Karenina.
No more words are necessary to say how great and well know the book has been, as evidenced by numerous other forms of arts created based on this tragic love story. Among them are the many movies, and the latest attempt is a movie of the same name directed by Joe Wright. The TV trailers and propaganda stirred a compelling urge in the heart of me, an avid admire of Tolstoy’s works. I was initially very disappointed and even became angry when upon seeing the ad the first time and searched the local theaters and couldn’t find a single one showing the movie. Then this week, I tried again and was happily surprised that quite a number of theaters in the area are showing this movie. Thus in a short time span of about two weeks, I’ve seen two movies, which are the average number of movies I see in a year.
I am happy that I’ve seen both Lincoln and Anna Karenina. Both are not great but decent productions that satisfied my appetite and brought back some of the memories and the emotions that have mostly faded since I read the books many years ago.
Although I’ve forgotten most of the details of the novel, the movie captured the main points of it. It followed the story line in the same fashion as it is told in the novel. It opened with the most shocking description that basically foretold the fate of the protagonist, the gruesome and horridly mutilated body of a railroad worker under the heavy black steel wheels of the train that brought Anna Karenina to Moscow. It then followed by the meeting between Anna and Vronsky, Kitty’s rejection of a marriage proposal by Levin, the ball that first showed the affection between Vronsky and Anna to the world, culminated with the accident in the horse race, and the conversation between Karenin and Anna during the ride home. Thereafter other famous scenes that are described in vivid details in the book are artfully and concisely told in the movie without loss of the original flavors.
The novel is a huge book. Each of the above scenes can be read as decently sized novels themselves separately. To condense such a huge volume into a movie about just two hours, the producers, editors, and directors must make important choices to tell the story in original Tolstoy fashion without much loss of the original author’s ideas. Tolstoy was such a great writer that his long descriptions are so detailed and elaborate that only loyal and determined readers are able to fully absorb the story as a whole. There is no doubt that many people read the book and forget most of it, but the movie directors must know that the people who decide to spend the time and money to go to a theater seeing this movie must have all read the novel.
Many viewers may have each formed in their own minds the looks of the characters, their voices, and even the ways they walked and talked. Anna, described as a woman of exceptional beauty in appearance and elegance in style, had a picture in my mind based on Tolstoy’s descriptions. Although I was not impressed in seeing the Anna in the picture, I was not disappointed. The rest of the cast is also well presented. Kitty, Vronsky, Karenin, Levin etc. are all very well chosen actors for their roles.
Perhaps one of the most difficult things to do is how to translate the scenery and particularly emotional descriptions in the book in pictures. Leo Tolstoy was a master in describing the inner feelings of his characters. Each of the main events was described in great detail in the book. For example, it took Tolstoy many chapters to describe Levin’s life in his farm, how he did his shootings, how he harvested the grass with his tenants, etc. Tolstoy’s description of Anna’s final thoughts before she threw herself to the tracks of a coming train has been one of the best among such writings. It’s impossible for anyone to convert these words into pictures. Thus the movie makers must find some other means to let the viewers feel the struggles in the minds of the characters.
They adopted a strategy that has been used in many other movies. A stage is set up to limit the scope of the whole story. The stage is the society, in which all the characters lived, communicated, and observed each other. Sometimes they are actors on the stage and sometimes they become observers, just like in the real world. Russia is a big country but the society is small, the society is composed a small number of people. Anna and everyone else live in this society. Symbolism is used for every event in the movie. Everything happens in this small society. The best presentation of this abstraction is the horse race scene. Here every member of the society is present. Vronsky’s fall from the stage to the floor signifies the fall from grace in this society. Here Anna announced to the world that she is in love with Vronsky.
People who are not used to this kind of technique may feel uncomfortable with the dramatic and exaggerated treatment of Tolstoy’s descriptions. The scenes of the monotonic and synchronized office clerks in Oblonsky’s office are simple and effective ways to convene Tolstoy’s words to a movie audience. On the other hand, the routine use of the stage limits the director’s imagination to just a few scenes. The movie lacks the creativity in other means to translate the words for more complicated and subtle feelings in people’s mind. The advantage of a novel written in words is that the author can reveal such feelings in great details and in lengthy descriptions. It takes a great team of movie makers to bring the author’s descriptions to the viewers.
This reminds me of the movies like Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai. In Lawrence of Arabia, the long and silent camel ride in the desert is an unforgettable achievement of the cinema photographer’s ingenuity. The intensity of the colonel’s thoughts upon spotting the bomb wires under the bridge in The Bridge on the River Kwai can be felt by everyone watching the movie. The makers of Anna Karenina don’t have the talent to use pure and original movie techniques to connect the feelings of the characters in the movie with the audience. Instead, they use elaborate visual and audio effects, such as the sudden and loud thumps to startle the audience.
I like the costume design, the dresses of the women are elegant. I also like the choreography designs. The dance movies are not usually seen in the movies about the 19th century European countries of that era.
For any fan of the book, there is no reason to not to see the movie. It has its merit, if just for someone to be able to visualize those characters.
The movie closes with the scene of Karenina living with his son and Vronsky’s daughter in a peaceful and tranquil world, which is a vast open and boundless grassland. But it is still a small scene of the society. No one is watching them anymore because their lives are not interesting anymore. Viewers must wonder what love really means. Human beings have emotions, men and women are sexually attracted to each other. They marry and produce children. They die when their emotions run amok of the society. But in the end, what matters? Mr. Karenin lost his wife, but he retained his children and peace. Love can be great and bloody, just as Shakespeare imprecated through the mouth of Venus in his long poem Venus and Adonis.
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