Anna Karenina (1948)

As I mentioned in my discussion of Tolstoy's novel, Anna Karenina has made into several film and TV adaptations. One of the most greatly acclaimed is a 1935 version starring Greta Garbo. That is currently not available via Netflix, so instead I watched a 1948 film adaptation, starring Vivien Leigh. It would be tough to better it, as it perfectly encapsulates the novel and is also a visual feast.

Directed by Julien Duvivier, and with a script by a trio that included playwright Jean Anouilh, the film, as one might expect, boiled down the story to the love triangle of Anna, Count Vronsky, and Anna's cuckolded husband, who is brilliantly played by Ralph Richardson. Kieron Moore, as Vronsky, is less successful--he kind of has a lisp, and didn't strike me as the suave bon vivant that would woo a woman away from her husband.

The film begins as the book does, with Anna's brother Stepan (a very funny Hugh Dempster) sleeping on the couch, banished there by his wife after his indiscretion with a governess. Anna convinces her sister-in-law Dolly to take Stepan back, but when she arrives at the train station she meets Vronsky. The shot of Vronsky looking through the pane of glass into the compartment where Anna is sitting is a wonder, which recalls the look of silent cinema. Many of the scenes, particular of trains and snowstorms, have a snow globe look to them, suggesting a timeless, fairy-tale quality that perfectly works with the material. The black-and-white photography, by Henri Alekan, is first rate.

Richardson, much older and a bit of a prig, soon suspects Anna's attentions toward Vronsky, and is stunned when she comes right and tells him she's in love with her dashing new man. Richardson is outraged, and seeks a divorce, but then decides not to give her the satisfaction, nor will he allow her to see their son.

Richardson's performance highlights something that the book also has--an essentially unsympathetic view of this man, who often behaves like an ogre. This, even though he should be the sympathetic character--after all, Anna, without much thought of him, runs off with another man, shaming him in society. But of course, as a woman, Anna will pay a bigger price, being shunned by friends, crystallized in a scene when she attends the opera alone.

Much of the subplots, particularly involving Levin and his thoughts on agricultural reform, are by necessity dropped, although he and Kitty do appear as characters. To be honest, the film showed me things that I missed in the novel, and added an effective device--Anna frequently dreams of a white-haired old man, banging a stick against some metal, which she thinks symbolizes her death. When he appears, right before she throws herself in front of a train, it's kind of chilling.

As for Leigh, she makes a perfect Anna. With she and Garbo to live up to, Keira Knightley will have it tough in the upcoming film version.