53 replies to this topic

[dirac]

We have been favored with a new film version of Anna Karenina, as Keira Knightley prepares to go toe-to-toe with Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh. I fear this will be another example of Joe Wright converting a literary work of high complexity into a vehicle for his leading lady, but you never know. Screenplay by Stoppard. Jude Law is playing Karenin. Hmmmmm.......

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The 27-year-old star plays the title role in the big-budget film adapted from Leo Tolostoy's classic novel alongside Jude Law, 39, and claims that becoming Anna, who cheats on her husband, proved difficult for someone more used to playing nice girls.

Related.

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Instead of stately homes or snow-covered palaces, this Anna Karenina largely unfolds inside a crumbling playhouse whose stage, wings and auditorium provide settings for the action.

At one point a railway station, at another a race course, the theatre becomes an all-encompassing world intended to reflect the characters' obsession with etiquette, decorum and manners.

[Helene]

I'll probably go see it, but if I were looking for a young female lead, I would have cast Mia Wasikowska of "Jane Eyre."  I'd have loved to see Tom McCamus as Karenin.

I can't think of any age-appropriate Vronsky's offhand.  Benedict Cumberbatch has too much energy.  Or Levin's for that matter.

[dirac]

I thought Wasikowska miscast in Jane Eyre but then I haven't been wildly impressed with her in general. Both she and Knightley are a bit young for Anna but Wasikowska especially – she can't be more than 25 at the outside, I should think. McCamus is an interesting choice for the part, he could do it.

[Helene]

When watching Wasikowska in "Jane Eyre," I thought of Anna Karenina.

[dirac]

I was thinking how miscast the leads were.  It's too bad, because there was plenty of room for improvement over the old Fontaine-Welles version.

[Helene]

I suspect that readers shook their heads back then, too, and thought, "They cast [fill in the blank]?  What were they thinking?"

[abatt]

If nothing else, this new film should be a visual feast of costumes and scenery.

[dirac]

Fontaine was too pretty for Jane - almost any female star would be - but she'd played mousy girls previously so I don't think she was too unexpected in the role at the time. Welles was a reasonable, even obvious, choice for Rochester, even if one has reservations about the end result.

abatt, on 11 September 2012 - 02:12 AM, said:

If nothing else, this new film should be a visual feast of costumes and scenery.

If you take a look at the BBC item, abatt, it looks as if the project began that way but ended up rather different, which could be good or bad. As the article notes, the risk is that you alienate audience members who've come for the ruffles and the views.

I never saw the Sophie Marceau version - has anyone?

[Mashinka]

Trailers for this film are currently dominating every TV ad-break here.  It looks very pretty, if a little bizarre with everything set in a theatre, but I was struck by how young the cast looked, particularly Karenin.  If I remember rightly didn't Anna marry a top civil servant in her late twenties for financial security?  That would put her into her mid 30's when she started the affair and surely Vronsky was a man of a similar age, a rugged military man, not the cute blond toy-boy we see in this film.

It's showing all over London right now, even at my local South London cinema, for a second I thought about seeing it last Friday, but as one of the other screens was showing Ted I chose to see that instead and didn't regret my choice.

[dirac]

It's been a long time since I read the book but I don't remember that, Mashinka. I've always thought of Anna as around 30 or so because her son is eight years old, but since women married very young it's possible she could have been around Knightley's age, now that I think about it. Mid-thirties is a bit high IMO, although I think Vivien Leigh was about 35 when she played it - in that telling Vronsky was a somewhat younger man. Karenin is definitely about twenty years older, so Law's too young, he can't be more than forty at the outside. I agree that Vronsky is about Anna's age.

[Mrs. Stahlbaum]

I've seen the Sophie Marceau version.  I can't comment on casting, acting, etc., but I loved it as a costume drama.  Beautiful scenery and soundtrack.  A little ballet at the theater scene, and some nice scenes of singing peasants.

[dirac]

Thanks, Mrs. Stahlbaum.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Has anybody seen this...? I had the heads up this morning, and plan to go tonight. Downer is...I'm sort of tired of Knightley in every other XIX Century heroine role...

Any clues...?

[Birdsall]

I loved it!

[Helene]

I'm planning to see it because the setting in the theater sounds interesting.