Anna Karenina (1997)

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Movie
German title Anna Karenina
Original title Anna Karenina
Country of production USA , Russia
original language English
Publishing year 1997
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Bernard Rose
script Bernard Rose
production Bruce Davey
Jim Lemley
Stephen McEveety
music Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Rachmaninov
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
camera Daryn Okada
cut Victor Du Bois
occupation

Anna Karenina is the 1997 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy, written between 1875 and 1877 . The main role is cast with Sophie Marceau . In the film, which is also set in 19th century Russia , the story develops from the point of view of Konstantin Dmitrijewitsch Lewin ( Alfred Molina ), with director and screenwriter Bernard Rose sticking more closely to the original book than was the case with earlier films .

action

The awkward Konstantin Dmitrijewitsch Lewin appears as a first-person narrator as the framework story . He tells of a nightmare in which he falls into a pit, chased by wolves, and is threatened by an angry bear while hanging from a root. This is how he feels his life: hopeless. Levin arrives in Moscow and wants to ask for the hand of the young and pretty Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatsky, commonly known as Kitty. However, she refuses the marriage proposal because she is hoping for a proposal from the attractive young cavalry officer Count Alexei Kirillowitsch Vronsky. He feels sympathy for Kitty, but has no plans to marry.

Then Levin tells about Anna Karenina, the sister of Prince Stepan (called "Stiwa") Arkadjewitsch Oblonski. He is married to Kitty's older sister Darja Alexandrovna, who is called Dolly. Anna Karenina is the beautiful and clever wife of the rich, callous and much older Prince Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin. Despite her glamorous existence and the proximity to the Russian court of the tsars, she leads a lonely, unfulfilled life, is unhappy in her marriage and disappointed in life. Her husband, a high government official, sees a successful career as the highest goal in life and has no understanding for his young wife. As a conscientious and loyal wife and loving mother of a nine-year-old son, she may be satisfied, but she has never experienced true passion.

Anna Karenina travels from Saint Petersburg to Moscow to reconcile her sister-in-law Dolly with Stiwa. He has started an affair with a former prostitute , which, however, in no way affects his social position. Right at the train station, Anna Karenina meets Count Vronsky, who is picking up his mother, Countess Vronskaya, from the train. The ladies traveled together in the same compartment and the two young people are introduced to each other. Vronsky falls in love with Anna Karenina the first time he meets at Moscow train station, whom he sees again at a ball, where he dances mazurka with her, watched jealously by the unhappily in love kitty.

A tragic incident seems like a bad omen for the future: a station worker falls, gets caught between the tracks of the train and is rolled over and killed by the train as the train starts up again in front of the horrified passengers.

Anna formally flees from Vronsky and her feelings home to St. Petersburg to her husband and her son Serjosha. Vronsky follows them on the same train, but drives in a different car . Anna is picked up by her husband at the train station, where the three of them briefly meet. After initial hesitation, Anna Karenina finally lets herself into an affair with Vronsky and thus becomes entangled in the classic whirlpool of duty and inclination. Her relationship with Vronsky becomes evident when he falls during a horse race and she is extremely horrified. The scandal resulting from the affair drives Anna towards her tragic demise.

Anna is expecting a child from her lover and confesses to her husband that she is out of wedlock. Karenin refuses to divorce and demands that she never see her lover again and that she should behave appropriately in the future, otherwise he would deprive her of her son. Eventually she miscarries and is dying, and her husband forgives her. When her lover rushes to her deathbed , he forgives him too in the face of suffering. Returning home, Vronsky tries to commit suicide.

Contrary to all expectations, Anna survived; the opium prescribed to calm her down helps her to overcome the loss of the child . Vronsky brings the still sick woman out of the marital home and travels with her to Italy . However, homesick and longing for her son, she wants to return to Russia. Her lover, who has quit his military service for her sake and thereby (to the displeasure of his mother) has given up a promising career , returns with her. He does not feel fulfilled without his job. At the same time, the story of the wealthy landowner Lewin and his marriage to Kitty, who was spurned by Vronsky in favor of Anna, runs. Lewin had initially turned her down because of Vronsky, shortly afterwards became very ill and had withdrawn to a German spa. The connection is only hesitantly entered into on Dolly's (Anna's sister-in-law) mediation. Lewin, who had initially been rejected, realized that he still loved her when he accidentally looked at Kitty in the car. The relationship between the two deepens over time and they lead an extremely happy marriage, crowned by the birth of a child.

Meanwhile, Anna's husband takes advantage of Anna's situation for his own interests. He is under the influence of the religious fanatic Countess Lydia Ivanovna ( Fiona Shaw ), a friend of the house, who now runs his household for him. Karenin continues to refuse to consent to the divorce and claims custody of their son, whom Anna is not allowed to see either, although the father himself has no emotional connection to the child. Lydia even goes so far as to tell the boy that his mother is dead. When Anna secretly sneaks into the house on the boy's birthday to bring the child presents, Karenin catches her. He furiously chases his crying wife out of the house.

Anna, who cannot come to terms with the situation, becomes more and more unhappy and dissatisfied, and her social ostracism soon becomes so great that it finally comes to a catastrophe . Her lover goes about his amusements and social obligations as usual and much to Anna's displeasure, while Anna mistrusts him more and more. Unwisely she scolds during an argument with him about his mother and accused them that they it with their new beautiful partner matchmaking wanted and he was probably not averse. He goes to various dinners and the opera without her and accompanies his mother and her young companion. Anna spends the evenings and nights brooding at home alone - and with opium to calm her down.

Her lover seems to stay with her only out of a sense of duty, his love has cooled. And she doesn't want to go back to her husband, whom she now loathes and who still refuses to get a divorce. She sees no way out without a future together with her beloved man and throws herself in front of a train. Vronsky then volunteered for the war in Serbia (1877), in which the Serbs revolted against the Turks, because he, too, no longer sees any meaning in his life. He tells Lewin this when they both happened to be traveling in the same train compartment, Vronsky towards the front and Lewin home to his wife and son, from whom he was happily expected.

background

  • Bernard Rose chose Sean Bean for the role of Count Vronsky after seeing him on British TV in the role of Richard Sharpe in the Sharpe series and believing that the actor would look perfectly natural in a contemporary military uniform and hence the ideal cast.
  • This film was Anna Karenina's first "western" production that was actually filmed in Russia ( Saint Petersburg ) between February and July 1996.
  • The film grossed around $ 2.2 million.

criticism

  • The OÖN wrote on May 3, 1997 that the film had left a great perplexity. Bernard Rose didn't know what to do with Tolstoy any more than he did with his actors. Sophie Marceau rushes through the area with a beautiful and pale face, constantly searching for the (Russian) soul. The exhausted spectator almost wants to call out to her before jumping in front of the train: “Jump, girl, jump!” The wooden Sean Bean would probably have cut a better figure than Pinocchio , and James Fox acted as a deceived Alexej A. Karenin like a melancholy British gentleman with the perpetual five o'clock tea.
  • The filmdienst 9/1997, however, said that the film is closely based on the template. With its elaborate equipment and attention to detail, it shows the life of fine society, always concentrating on its psychology and is excellently photographed and staffed.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anna Karenina (1997) . jpbox-office.com. Retrieved May 13, 2014.