Film Adaptations of Classic Russian Novels

  There has been a long history of adapting classic Russian novels to film in the English speaking world.  These classic novels by authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pasternak, and others allow an English speaking audience to enter into a world with which they are completely unfamiliar and see that the issues which these people face are dealt with all over the world. 

   In this article I will look at the 1935 American film adaptation of “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the 1956 film “War and Peace”, “Brothers Karamazov” (1958), the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago”, and the 2002 BBC adaptation of “Crime and Punishment”.  I will examine several films and television series about classic Russian novels in order to see how faithful they are to the novels themselves and how well they correspond with one another. 

  Joseph von Sternberg (1894-1969) directed “Crime and Punishment”¹, a 1935 film based upon the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This film starred Peter Lorre in the title role as Rodin Raskolnikov (his first name was changed to Roderick for an American audience).  This film bore little, if any resemblance, to the novel.  In fact, the director was so disappointed with this film that he does not list it among the films he is credited with directing.         

    What was America’s fascination with classic Russian literature that in a span of two years, from 1956 to 1958, both War and Peace by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) and “Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) were made into films?  The American people would have known very little about Russia in 1956.  Both countries were in the middle of the Cold War and there was a great deal of propaganda on both sides regarding how horrible the other country was.

    The 1956 film “War and Peace”² starred Henry Fonda as Pierre Bezuhov and Audrey Hepburn as Natasha Rostova (the two main characters).  This film does not cover every aspect of Tolstoy’s original novel, but focuses on the relationship of three of the main characters.  Very early in the film there is a scene where Pierre is getting drunk with a group of friends.  This scene contains every almost every possible Russian stereotype, except for a dancing bear.  At one point in the scene one of the characters is standing backward on the window ledge and facing inside the room.  He begins to bend over backward while drinking a bottle of vodka.  Apparently, the winner was the person who could finish drinking the vodka without falling out of the window.  Other than feeding into a Russian stereotype, what was the point of this “game”?  This scene is not in the novel; however, the director, King Vidor (1894-1982) felt it necessary to put it in the movie.

    The costumes are wonderful.  In typical Hollywood style of the time, the film makes everything appear almost larger than life by virtue of the camera angles.  This film has a wonderful cast of actors, but financially it was unsuccessful.  It earned only $250,000 for the studio. A large part of the reason might have been that this was an epic film about a Russian novel.  Americans did not normally watch epic films, particularly those about Russian novels.

     It is not that Americans were opposed to epic films.  In the same year that “War and Peace” was completed, Cecil B. DeMille completed “The Ten Commandments” for a different studio.  “The Ten Commandments” is also an epic film, but the story of Moses would have been much better known by an American audience. 

     Two years after the completion of “War and Peace”, Richard Brooks (1912-1992) directed “Brothers Karamazov”³.  This movie is based upon a novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  The novel tells the story of three brothers (Dmitry, Alexei, and Ivan) and their relationship with each other and their father, Fyodor.  It is also a “murder mystery” since Fyodor is killed and the reader must determine who committed the murder.

     Fyodor Karamazov (played by Lee J. Cobb) is not a very likeable figure.  In the one of the first scenes in the film, the audience is introduced to Fyodor Karamazov after he has tied a woman to his bed and is interrupted because his son, Alexei (film debut for William Shatner) has arrived at his home.  Fyodor is a rather boorish man who seems to respect Alexei only. 

      In the novel, Dmitry Karamazov sees himself as being a rather foolish person and his actions reflect his belief about himself.  In the movie, Dmitry (played by Yul Brenner) comes across as a rather self-confident, if not arrogant, person.  He constantly borrows money from his father and this has become a source of tension between the two of them since Dmitry never paid back what he borrowed. 

     Another character is Smerdyakov, half-brother to the Karamazov brothers and son of Fyodor.  Smerdyakov is treated very poorly by Fyodor Karamazov in the film.  Dmitry is accused of murdering Fyodor; however, Smerdyakov confesses to Ivan Karamazov (played by Richard Basehart) that he killed Fyodor. Dmitry is put on trial for murder, but, instead of Smerdyakov confessing in court that he killed Fyodor, he kills himself. 

     In both the novel and film, Dmitry is convicted of murdering his father.  However, in the novel he accepts his fate and considers himself to be a martyr for love.  After being convicted of murder, Dmitry is sent to prison in Siberia and the woman he loved went to be with him in Siberia.

     The film shows Dmitry deciding to escape rather than board a train bound for Siberia.  He became a fugitive and the rest of the film deals with the topic: “Will Dmitry escape from Russia?”  What was the reason why Richard Brooks decided to add this into the film when it was not in the novel?  We do not know.  It is possible he did so because of the lack of justice in Dmitry’s conviction.  He was wrongfully convicted and should be able to escape rather than going to prison.  The movie ends without the audience knowing if he ever escaped from Russia. 

    It is also interesting that Yul Brenner is the only person in this film who had any connection to Russia.  He was born in Russia, but lived most of his life in either the US or Western Europe. 

    Another Western adaptation of a classic Russian novel was the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago”⁴ starring Omar Sharif as Yuri Zhivago.  This film was based upon the novel of the same name by well-known poet, Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)⁵.  This novel was first published in Milan in 1957. Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 for Doctor Zhivago, but was forbidden to attend the award ceremony by the Soviet government of Nikita Khrushchev. 

    This film continues to be extremely popular.  Like “War and Peace” this was an epic film, but it was much more acceptable to an American audience.  Perhaps it was simply the period of history when this film was made or the strong love story plot of the film, but it earned over $100,000,000 for its studio.  In the US, the success of a film is based largely upon the amount of money that the film earned rather than the depth of the subject matter. 

     Pasternak depicts Lara as an almost unscrupulous woman who uses her sexuality to obtain what she wants from life, but in the film David Lean (1908-1991), the director, presents Lara (portrayed by Julie Christie) as more of a victim.  In the 2006 Russian TV series “Doctor Zhivago”, Lara is not a very likeable character.   

     Since this film was released in 1965 and the US was still involved in the Cold War with the USSR, David Lean did not spend as much time focusing on the events of the Russian revolution as Pasternak did.   The love story between Yuri and Lara is what made this film successful along with the beauty of the Russian scenery which an American audience would never have seen in person.

      A very good English speaking adaptation of a classic Russian novel was the 2002 TV mini-series “Crime and Punishment” produced by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). This series was extremely faithful to the novel.  The BBC felt no obligation to change the story line in order to adapt this novel to television.  This is much easier to do with a mini-series since it continues over several episodes instead of a film which only lasts for a few hours, at most. 

    Since I wrote about the various adaptations of Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910) in another article⁶, I have decided to forego writing about it here.  One important fact to remember is that no other novel has had more film adaptations made about it than Anna Karenina. 

    Attempting to turn a novel into a film while, at the same time, remaining faithful to the original novel is not an easy process; however, this is very important. Poetic license does allow for some changes, but how many changes can be made before a movie is no longer connected with a particular novel?  I once heard it said, “Never judge a book by its movie”⁷ and there is a great deal of truth in that statement.

                                                          End Notes

1)    “Crime and Punishment: (1935 American Film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment_(1935_American_film) 

2)    “War and Peace (1956 film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace_(1956_film)

3)    “The Brothers Karamazov (1958 film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov_(1958_film)

4)    “Doctor Zhivago (film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Zhivago_(film)

5)    “Boris Pasternak” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Pasternak

6)    “Anna Karenina: A Cinematic Journey on the Silver Screen from 1927 to 2012” http://heideggerm1.blogspot.com/2013/03/anna-karenina-cinematic-journey-on.html  

7)    Quote by J. W. Eagan: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-11-17/features/9611170349_1_thomas-campion-faults-bear

 

 

  

No Substitute for Talent

   An aptitude is a component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level, which can also be considered "talent". Aptitudes may be physical or mental. Aptitude is not knowledge, understanding, learned or acquired abilities (skills) or attitude. The innate nature of aptitude is in contrast to achievement, which represents knowledge or ability that is gained.¹

      Talent may be an innate natural aptitude in regard to a certain type of work; however, it is something which must be supported and sustained on a regular basis.  There are many people who can play various keys on a piano and many of the these people are even quite capable to playing various musical compositions, but not everyone can sit down and begin to compose music like Ludwig van Beethoven or Sergei Rachmaninoff.   These men had an innate ability which only improved with use.

    However, there are some people who believe that if they wear the proper clothing or know the right people then somehow their “talent” will be discovered, regardless of whether or not such talent actually exists.  This is quite evident on television shows such as “America’s Got Talent” or “Ukraine’s Got Talent”.  Some of the people who appear on these shows have innate talent which is acknowledged by professionals in a given field; however, there are other people who are living in a fantasy world where they believe that they possess a talent in singing, dancing, or some other area.  Many of these people are astonished when they are told that they do not possess such a talent and often become angry at the judges for saying that they do not have such a talent.  The truth can be a very painful thing to accept; however, there is no virtue in lying to someone and encouraging them to ‘work harder’ when this person does not possess the basis of any real talent.

   Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (1769-1844) was an extremely talented fabulist and he would have been able to see if others possessed talent also.  In “The Quartet” ², Krylov addresses whether or not playing “musical chairs” actually increases talent.  In fact, it is quite possible that the concept of “playing musical chairs” originated in this fable.

   Simply sitting down at a desk with a pen and paper does not help to inspire the next Edgar Allan Poe in the same way that simply sitting down at a piano would not inspire the next Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  However, it would appear that Monkey, Donkey, Goat, and Bear have convinced themselves that they have some hidden talent that no one else can see.

     We often see this in government work also.  Many people are promoted or reassigned 

to new jobs not because of their talent, but because their supervisor wants to remove this person from his or her department and having this person transferred is easier than having this person removed from their job.  While it might not be easy, sometimes it is both necessary and charitable to say, as the nightingale said,

      “"For making music, you must have the knack

        And ears more musical than yours,"

        The nightingale comes back,

      "And you, my friends, no matter your positions,

        Will never be musicians!"

 

                                                     End Notes

1)    Aptitude: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptitude

2)    “Квартет/Quartet” http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Demo/texts/quartet.htm   

Destroying Individuality: Making Everyone Mediocre

    Like Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) understood the importance of new modes of communication and technologies in the development of modernity. “The press, the machine, the railway, and the telegraph are premises whose thousand year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.” Moreover, like Kierkegaard, he saw the press and mass culture as engendering a leveling process that was destroying individuality and community while producing a homogenized, herd conformity.  Nietzsche believed that modern society had become so chaotic, fragmented, and devoid of “creative force” that it had lost the resources to create a vital culture and that ultimately, modern society greatly advanced the decline of the human species that had already begun early in Western history. 
    In Nietzsche’s view two trends were evident that were producing contradictory processes of massification and fragmentation---whose extreme consequences would be the central theme of postmodern theory.  On the one hand, modern society was fragmenting into warring groups, factions, and individuals without any overriding purpose or shared goals. On the other hand, modern society is leveling individuals into a herd, bereft of individuality, spontaneity, passion, or creativity.  Both trends were harmful to the development of the sort of free, creative, strong individuality championed by Nietzsche and he sharply criticized each.¹

      The insights offered by Nietzsche were shared by many others as well.  Hannah Arendt (1904-1975), a German-American political theorist, also expressed concerns regarding the destruction of individuality because of the impact it would have on the future of the nation.

   In her novel, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt wrote that after the murder of a moral person and the annihilation of a judicial person, the destruction of individuality is almost always successful…For to destroy individuality is to destroy spontaneity, man’s power to begin something new out of his own resources, something which cannot be explained on the basis of reactions and environment.  Nothing then remains but ghastly marionettes with human faces, which all behave like the dogs in Pavlov’s experiments, which all react with perfect reliability even when going to their own death, and which do nothing but react.  This is the real triumph of the system. ²

   To make human beings superfluous is to eradicate the very conditions that make humanity possible---to destroy human plurality, spontaneity, and individuality. Arendt sums this up in the paragraph which immediate precedes her brief discussion about absolute or radical evil.³

   What totalitarian ideologies therefore aim at is not the transformation of society, but the transformation of human nature itself.  The concentration camps are the laboratories where changes in human nature are tested and their shamefulness, therefore, is not just the business of their inmates and those who run them according to strictly “scientific” standards; it is the concern of all men. Suffering, of which there has always been too much on earth, is not the issue, nor is the number of victims. Human nature is at stake, and even though it seems that these experiments succeed not in changing man, but only in destroying him, by creating a society in which the nihilistic banality of homo homini lupus (man unto man a wolf) is consistently realized, one should bear in mind the necessary limitations to an experiment which requires global control in order to show conclusive results.⁴  

   Parents play a major role in either inspiring or destroying their children individuality.  This is often done under the guise that either the parents know what is best for their child or the parents “meant well”, but the reality is that in many cases the children of these parents are living the lives that their parents wanted them to live with often very unhappy results. 

    Parents often insist that their children conform and not go against the prevailing societal code. Many parents staunchly believe in blind and mindless conformity. They believe that there is safety in following the prevailing and/or majority opinion. They contend that following the majority consensus offers a sense of belonging and security. They stress to their children that it is safer and more feasible to conform to the prevailing groupthink philosophy. They strongly discourage their children's strong individualism and nonconformity because it is believed that if their children refuse to conform to the prevailing groupthink, they would be considered oddballs or worse, being ostracized and alone. A worse scenario according to the parents, these children would be ostracized and denigrated by their neighbors and associates. So if their child/children dare to have a unique, creative, and innovative thought and idea, it is squashed and oftentimes considered outlandish and weird because nobody else thought of it! These parents are killing the dreams of a potential Picasso, Einstein, Mozart, Pushkin, or Tchaikovsky. ⁵

     Schools do the same thing.  Standardized tests, which are very popular in the US, actually serve to “pigeonhole” potential in students and are design to reward averageness.  After taking these tests, the school system often makes determinations about the mental abilities or potential of particular students and those students who are outside of the norm are negatively labeled for the rest of their time in the education system.

     Another problem is that the school system is designed to meet the needs of those who fall within the center of the “bell curve”.⁶   It is highly unlikely that if they had such standardized tests in earlier centuries that people like Mozart, Beethoven, van Gogh, Mussorgsky, Einstein, Pushkin, or Tchaikovsky would have had test scores in the middle range of the bell curve.  Many of these people had difficulty in school and would have perhaps been considered people who would never amount to anything because they could not do well on a standardized test. These people were geniuses and such tests are not designed to encourage genius.

   Researchers of creative geniuses claim, as a rule, these geniuses were poor students. Perhaps some of them did well in school, but they often found that many of them were bad students.

1. Voltaire's father told Voltaire and his brother: "I raised two fools. One fool in verse and another one in prose.”  

2. Isaac Newton was the worst student in the class until he beat up a fellow student. After that, Newton decided to beat him in knowledge. In a few months he became the best in the class.

3. Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor of the German Empire, was very bad with his studies and his work was even worse.  He could only find a job through patronage.  He would either be fired from every job, leave on his own, or be unable to carry out his assignment.

4. Napoleon was bad in all subjects, except mathematics.

5. Ludwig van Beethoven’s writing was very bad and he was unable to master either division or multiplication.

6. Albert Einstein - the creator of the theory of relativity and Nobel Prize laureate was a very average student. His parents had no illusions about him and hoped that he will at least be able to get a simple job.

7. Pushkin was very poorly managed at the Lyceum, and wept while studying arithmetic. After certification, the presentation of diplomas, he was second from the last.

8. Sergei Korolev, under whose leadership were created geophysical ballistic missiles, the first satellites, and the spacecrafts "Vostok" and "Voskhod", was considered to be a very poor student.

9. Chekhov held back in school twice.  He later went on to become both a medical doctor and highly successful author.

10.  Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Muskateers, was a very poor student in mathematics. 

     In fact, this may be one reason why geniuses very often end up living rather tragic lives.  After examining the biographies of many geniuses I noticed that many of them died at a rather young age from either alcoholism or suicide.  In some cases, excessive use of alcohol could also be seen as a form of suicide.

    Why did the lives of these geniuses often end so tragically? Very often these people were not understood by the society in which they lived and were considered odd as a result.  Some of these people were able to hear music where no one else heard it or have insights into things which others either did not have or could not express.  This makes someone odd?  In a culture which promotes conformity as a virtue, the answer is “yes”. 

    Another challenge facing our society is bullying.  Many children are routinely either physically or emotionally abused by other children simply because they are different.  In some cases, these children are physically and emotionally abused.  It is often true that the person who acting as the bully has many personal problems, but that does not offer encouragement or support to someone who is being beaten everyday by someone simply for being different.

    Bullying would not be as much of an issue if our society was not so intent on producing uniformity and destroying individuality.  It is easy for someone to become a bully and even receive the help of other students simply by declaring a particular student to be “strange”.  Bullying is not an innate behavior.  We are not born with a desire to hate people simply for being different.  This is a learned behavior.  This is something which parents either tell their children or their children absorb based upon their parents’ actions.

     In the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, the issue of racial prejudice is addressed in the song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught”.  This song deals with the fact that prejudice is a learned behavior. The fact is that this is true. There would be no prejudice and no bullying if people simply accepted others as being different instead of attempting to force everyone to be the same.  If everyone was “the same” we would have none of the inventions that we take for granted every day because no one would have ever thought of them.  

     I do not see being average as something to strive for.  In fact, it is something to settle for because a person lacks either the talent or intelligence to be better than average.   Hopefully future generations will be able to produce someone of the caliber of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, or Einstein, but this will never happen if we choose to settle for “average” as the social standard and continue to destroy individuality.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was right when he wrote “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius."

                                                                  End Notes

1)  Best, Steven The Postmodern Turn (NY: Guilford Press, 1997), p. 57

2)   Arendt, Hannah The Origins of Totalitarianism (NY: Schocken Books,  1951) p. 455

3)   May, Larry and Jerome Kohn (eds.) Hannah Arendt: 20 Years Later (MA: MIT Press, 1997), p. 135

4)  Arendt, pp. 458-459

5)  “10 Ways Parents Destroy Their Children’s Self-Esteem” http://gmwilliams.hubpages.com/hub/Ten-Ways-Parens-Destroy-Their-Childrens-Self-Esteem

6)  “The Bell Curve” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Bark and No Bite

    Almost any time we attempt to receive some assistance from a government bureaucrat we find it to be extremely frustrating.  Instead of answering a simple question, these bureaucrats either ignore you or quote government policy which is, more often than not, very unhelpful. 

    Everyone deals with such frustrating experiences in a different way.  Some people will write a letter to the manager of the office, others will complain to their elected officials, others will simply do nothing, and some people will respond with either humor or sarcasm. 

    Frustration with bureaucracy is nothing new.  I am sure that there were many people who found the Roman government or those appointed by Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) to be very difficult to deal with when these two empires were in control of much of ‘the known world”. 

   In Russian literature, Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) expressed such frustration in his stories The Government Inspector, The Nose, The Overcoat, and Diary of a Madman.  Another Russian author, Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (1769-1844)¹, expressed his frustration using fables. 

    A fable is defined as “a narration intended to enforce a useful truth; especially: one in which animals speak and act like human beings.”  One such fable is “The Elephant and the Pug Dog”².  One of the great things about using fables as a way of conveying a message is that everyone can relate to the message and people will often be able to see some character in the fable who reminds them of someone they know in real life. 

    Krylov wrote this fable as a way of dealing with his frustration regarding the bureaucracy in Moscow, but this story could just as easily be discussing two nations dealing with each other or the way that some people act when they are afraid. 

    Unlike fairy tales, fables have a “moral” which is clearly expressed at the end of the story.  A fairy tale can also have a “moral”, but it is contained within the story instead of expressed simply at the end.  One of the most famous fabulists, one who tells fables, was Aesop (c. 620-564 BC)³ of ancient Greece.  Ivan Krylov and other fabulists would borrow Aesop’s fables and then rewrite them so they would appear to be written for a particular audience or based upon a particular situation. 

    Humor can be a wonderful way of dealing with frustration since it does not produce anger and helps people to realize that what they are experiencing at that moment.  The same is true when it comes to dealing with difficult people. Being able to see someone as either an elephant or a pug dog allows one to place a given situation in its proper context.  If this person is truly acting like the pug dog, why get upset about it?  If this person is truly the elephant then no amount of anger or frustration will affect them.

                                                  End Notes

1)    “Ivan Krylov” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Krylov

2)    “Elephant and Pug Dog” http://marika-eva.blogspot.com/2009/08/russia-and-georgia-as-elephant-and-pug.html

3)    “Aesop” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop

Anna Karenina: A Cinematic Journey on the Silver Screen from 1927 to 2012

  "All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." "Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастная семья несчастна по-своему."¹ It is with this quote that Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) began what is considered, by many, to be his most famous novel, Anna Karenina.

   Based upon the number of film adaptations which this novel has undergone, it would appear that this novel is a favorite among filmmakers as well.  The first Pathé version appeared in 1911² (just one year after Tolstoy’s death) and the most recent one made by Joe Wright in 2012. ³ Meanwhile, numerous other versions were produced: two films starring Greta Garbo (1905-1990)⁴, the silent film Love (1927), and Clarence Brown’s Anna Karenina (1935); two versions starring British actresses, the 1947 version with Vivien Leigh and the television production of 1985 with Jacqueline Bisset ; five Russian adaptations, including two silent films (one by Vladimir Gardin, starring Vera Vasilyevna Kholodnaya in 1914), the filmed performance at the Malyi Theatre, with Alla Tarasova as Anna in 1953, Aleksander Zarkhi’s Anna Karenina (1967), with Tatiana Yevgenyevna Samoilova and the creatively interesting hybrid of 1974: the film ballet with Maya Mikhaylovna Plisetskaya (b. 1924) ⁵

    In this article I will examine how Anna is presented in these various films by comparing the films of 1935, 1948, 1967, and 2012 in terms of how closely these various plots correspond to one another and to the original text of the novel.   

    When examining the various ways in which Anna Karenina has been interpreted in film it is important to keep in mind the country which the director is from.  In the 1927 and 1935 films, the directors were from the United States. There would have been very little known about life in Russia in the United States in either 1927 or 1935, so these directors were interpreting Anna as an American woman living in Russia.

     It may not have been their intention to interpret her as an American woman, but that was the result of the film.  For example, in the 1935 film, Greta Garbo comes across as a very strong minded, independent woman.  She is driven to despair by her husband who tells their son, Sergei, that his mother is dead and refuses to allow Anna to see him. 

     Fredric March (1897-1975), who played Count Vronsky, was initially a very supportive character, but soon had a great deal of difficulty understanding Anna’s mood swings and became eager to return to his comrades who were on their way to war. 

    It was somewhat surprising, and a bit strange, to hear the chorus “Glory, Glory to you, holy Rus'!” played after Anna’s tragic death in the 1935 film.  What point was the director attempting to make by choosing that song?  Was he attempting to show that life continued on in Russia even though Anna was gone or that Vronsky was beginning his new life without Anna?  Suicide is not understood as a heroic act, especially to an American audience, so this choice of music was certainly not meant to glorify Anna’s suicide as some sort of heroic act for her country.   This chorus was originally presented in the opera, A Life for the Tsar, by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857) about Ivan Susanin who gave up his own life to save Czar Mikhail Romanov from the Polish Army in 1613.⁶

       In fact, this music only appears at the end of the 1935 film.  There is no triumphant music at the end of any other film version of “Anna Karenina”.  This can certainly lead one to believe that this music was chosen for a very specific purpose, but I have not been able to locate any information about such a purpose.  Was this music meant to indicate that Anna had given her life for the glory of Russia?   We do not know.  Neither Clarence Brown (1890-1987), the film director nor Herbert Stothart (1885-1949) spoke about why this music was chosen at the end of the film.

     The 1948 film was produced in England and, not surprisingly, Anna and the other characters in the film come across as very British.  Throughout the film, Anna comes across as almost emotionless.  Kieron Moore (1924-2007), who plays Count Vronsky, does not give the impression that he does not love Anna, but neither does he give the audience the impression that she can turn to him for any kind of emotional support. 

    Throughout the film it was very easy to ask the question, “How will the director show us why Anna kills herself?”  Vivien Leigh (1913-1967), who played Anna, came across as a rather logical woman with a “stiff upper lip”.  She showed very little emotion, even when she calls her husband to her bedside and announces that she could die at any moment. 

    However, everything changes after the scene where Anna appears at the opera theater by herself.  Anna sees Count Vronsky sitting with his mother and a young woman in his mother’s theater box.  Anna is being accosted by those around her and Vronsky is nowhere to be found.  Then, as she is preparing to leave, Vronsky shows up.

    Later, Vronsky and Anna leave St. Petersburg and go to Italy.  While in Italy, he receives a telegram from his mother who asks him to return home.  Vronsky is emotionally distant at this point.  Anna has become convinced that Vronsky does not love her and that his mother is trying to arrange a marriage between Vronsky and the young woman from the opera theater.  However, Instead of saying or doing something to assuage Anna’s fears, Vronsky leaves her a very emotionless note that he had returned to St. Petersburg and would be back in two days. 

    At this point, Anna believes that all hope is lost.  She can no longer see her child, her marriage is over, and her lover now loves another woman.  It is all very logical.  She boards a train for St. Petersburg and when the train stops at a certain station, Anna leaves the train to get some air.  She begins to reflect upon her life while standing on the train tracks and we see her get run over by the train.  She does not utter a sound prior to being struck by the train.

    The 1967 film is understood, by many, as the finest film adaptation of Anna Karenina because the film is produced in the Soviet Union and is in Russian. It is quite true that Tatiana Yevgenyevna Samoilova (b. 1934), who plays Anna, is a very different personality than either Garbo or Leigh.   However, does that necessarily mean that her portrayal of Anna was the most accurate according to the novel?   Anna’s character is certainly much more emotional than the character portrayed by Vivien Leigh, but there are times when this character is almost at the point of hysterics in the 1967 film. 

     One of the first things that must be acknowledged is that the film’s primary goal was to shoot the stars, not the novel. This approach inevitably affected the structure of the film. In all of these films, the novel is reduced to the Anna-Vronsky connection. Karenin plays a largely subsidiary role.  It appears that his only purpose is making his wife’s love story romantically doomed.⁷

     In the 1935 film, Alexei Karenin is played by Basil Rathbone (1892-1967), who later became famous playing Sherlock Holmes in a series of films.  Karenin came across as a very strict man who cared only about public appearances.  He was very heavily influenced by rules of social etiquette and seemed to care very little about Anna’s feelings.  After Anna told him that she loved Vronsky, Karenin not only told Anna that he would never grant her a divorce, but that she was forbidden to ever see their son, Sergei, again.  This was too much for Anna to accept. It was very easy to dislike this character and understand why Anna fell in love with Vronsky.  

   Ralph Richardson, a British actor, played Karenin in the 1947 film and he was likewise more concerned about social etiquette than Anna’s feelings.  This character was not as harsh as Rathbone’s character, but it was also easy to dislike him.  What we often fail to take into consideration is that Karenin had every right to respond the way that he did.  If Vronsky were a female, he would be referred to as a “home wrecker”, but since he is a man this is simply seen as a love story between a dashing military man and a wealthy housewife whose husband does not understand her. 

    In the 1967 film, the character of Karenin is portrayed by Nikolai Gritsenko and this character was also rather unlikeable.  He also refuses to grant Anna a divorce, but when Anna sends him a message that she is dying, Karenin actually forgives Anna and has a rather understanding conversation with Vronsky outside of Anna’s bedroom. 

    This portrayal of Karenin as a rather nasty, angry man is not in keeping with the novel; however, such a film portrayal appears necessary if the director wants the audience to sympathize with the main character.  The fact is that in the novel Karenin does not come across as a difficult man at all.  He does make an issue about the divorce; however, it is important to keep in mind that in Russia in the 1870s, a decree of divorce was only granted by the czar and if the family was wealthy it was done for very specific reasons. 

    That is why during the conversation between Karenin and the lawyer there is so much time spent talking about Karenin having evidence to prove Anna’s infidelity.  Such evidence could be seen as a legitimate reason for divorce, but the other problem was the possibility of public scandal.   The issue of scandal is mentioned in the various film versions, but there is no discussion about the difficulty of obtaining a divorce.⁸ 

     The 1997 film “Anna Karenina” which was produced by Bernard Rose (b. 1960) and stars Sophie Marceau (b. 1966) in the title role, is a very interesting adaption of Tolstoy’s novel.  It was obvious that Rose had borrowed several ideas from the 1948 film with Vivien Leigh, but he also added some new elements which were not present in the earlier films.  For example, the story, in this film, is told by Lev Tolstoy through the character of Constantine Levin. 

     Some of the elements of the earlier films, such as the difficulties between Stepan and Dolly at the beginning of the film, are not present.  It appears that Bernard Rose is quite familiar with classic Russian literature given the fact that he directed at least two other films based upon Tolstoy’s stories, including a film entitled “Kreutzer Sonata”.  

     Sir Georg Solti’s (1912-1997) choice of music also had a profound impact on the film.  Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) Sixth Symphony, which he wrote prior to his own death, the choice of Tatiana’s aria from the opera “Evgeny Onegin”, and the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) helped to tell the story, even without words. 

     After seeing the 1997 film, the 2012 British film by Joe Wright (b. 1972) does not even appear to be based upon the same novel.  It is true that this film won an Academy Award for “Best Costume Design”, but in regard to the story of Anna Karenina it was more of a spoof than a remake of the novel. 

     It is true that Keira Knightley (b. 1985) is a very attractive woman, but this is not Anna Karenina.  Her character is one dimensional.  She seems to almost take delight in making the life of her sainted husband, played by Jude Law (b. 1972), miserable. Aaron-Taylor Johnson (b. 1990), who played Vronsky, actually came across as more of a spoiled rich child than an officer in the Czar’s guard.  He was rather devoted to Anna as the two of them were destroying Anna’s marriage, but he quickly became rather indifferent to her.   This was very obvious in the scene where Anna is confronted by people at the opera theater and Vronsky offers her no support at all. 

    Jude Law’s character came across as a saint.  I began to ask myself, “How could any woman be so stupid as to leave this man for Vronsky?”  Not only was Alexei Karenin not mean-spirited, but at the end of the film he is seen raising the child that Anna and Vronsky had while she was still married to Karenin.  There is no mention of this anywhere in the novel and I am not quite sure why Joe Wright felt the need to add that into the film. 

      I do understand that poetic license comes into play when making a movie, but it is still important that the director remain as faithful as possible to the novel, unless, of course, he begins by stating that the film is “based upon Anna Karenina”, which means that this film will bear only a slight resemblance to the film. 

    The audience for each film is also introduced to the characters of Stepan, Dolly, Kitty, and Constantine Levin.  Stepan and Dolly are there simply as a way of introducing us to Anna since Stepan, Anna’s brother, picks Anna up at the train station in Moscow very early on in the film.   Kitty is introduced to us because she is a rival love interest of Vronsky, but that fades quickly after Vronsky meets Anna. 

     In almost all of the films, except for the 1997 version, Constantine Levin is a rather one dimensional character.  He appears very rarely in the films and the audience has no indication that in the novel he plays a very major role as a personality contrast to Anna.  In fact, Anna Karenina is actually a novel about two major figures, Anna and Levin. The novel does not end with the death of Anna, but each film ends with her dying at the train station, either by falling in front of or being hit by a train.  

    Instead of seeing the contrast between the failed marriage of Karenin and Anna and the loving conversion experience undergone by Constantine Levin, the audience is simply left to believe that Anna was a wealthy misunderstood housewife who had a romantic fling with a dashing young military man, but finally killed herself when she realized what she had actually given up. 

     This overly simplistic explanation of the story of Anna Karenina does a tremendous disservice to both the novel and its author.  It has been said that Anna Karenina may have been an autobiographical novel by Tolstoy.  He had many personal difficulties in his marriage, including being accused by his wife, Sophia, of being a homosexual (even though he fathered thirteen children).⁹  

     Based upon this view that Tolstoy is like Anna, that means that Sophia is like Karenin.  It should not surprise us that when Tolstoy was dying, the one person that he did not want to see was Sofia.  He died near the train station where he left the train and the one person he did not want to see what his wife. 

     There is also a belief that Tolstoy is similar with Constantine Levin.  Levin is a wealthy man living on an estate outside of the city and works with the serfs living on his land.  This point was made in several versions of the film.   In fact, the 1967 version spent at least five minutes focusing on Levin’s serfs working in the fields. 

     The connection between Tolstoy and Levin was never fully addressed in any of the films; however, the role of Levin is extremely important in the novel.  I understand that the novel is called Anna Karenina, but even the author felt that the story of Kitty and Levin was important enough that he spent a great deal of time exploring this relationship and the positive change that Levin underwent as a result of his relationship with Kitty. 

     As I said earlier, poetic license aside, when working with a classic novel it is important that the film director remain as faithful to the novel as possible.  Stories such as Anna Karenina and other classic novels are timeless and can speak to audiences in various periods of history without having to change the story.  

                                                       End Notes

1. Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Anna Karenina (NY: International Collectors Library) [trans. by Constance Garnett], p. 4

2. This film, which began the history of the numerous cinematic adaptations of Tolstoy’s works in world cinema, has not survived.

3. “Anna Karenina 2012”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_(2012_film)  This film won an Academy Award in 2013 for “Best Costume Design”. 

4. She received the Best Actress Award from the New York Film Critics for playing Anna in the 1935 film.

5. In Irina Makoveeva’s “Cinematic Adaptations of Anna Karenina” (Studies in Slavic Culture, University of Pittsburgh, pp. 111-134) In her dissertation, The Modes of Storytelling: A Rhetorical Analysis of Film and Television Adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Beata Jurkowska-Krupa compares the setting, plot, characters, point of view, and use of literary tropes in the 1935 film and the TV version of 1985. She analyzes how the structures of film and television influence the choice of rhetorical devices used in the stories they tell. I disagree with some of her conclusions: for example, the statement that television adaptations follow the narrative devices of the literary texts more closely than do film adaptations. In the case of the Anna Karenina versions, she is misled by her focus on the 1935 film, for a comparison with the Russian version of 1967 could have given opposite results.

6. “A Life for the Tsar” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Life_for_the_Tsar

7. Irina Makoveeva “Cinematic Adaptations of Anna Karenina” (Studies in Slavic Culture, University of Pittsburgh, p. 118.

8.”Tsarist Russia and the Women’s Movement” http://gem.greenwood.com/wse/wsePrint.jsp?id=id576

9. “Issues in the Tolstoy Marriage” http://marriage.about.com/od/thearts/a/leotolstoy_3.htm