KEIRA KNIGHTLEY AND THE LITERARY LEGACY

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

This is how one of the greatest novels in human history begins. The Russian writer Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, in short Leo Tolstoy (and in German Leo Tolstoi), wrote Anna Karenina in 1877. It's nearly a thousand pages to read and captures a panorama of Russian society in the 19th century.

Literary adaptations from this time period seem to be in fashion these days as Les Misérables written by Victor Hugo in 1862, will be released in cinemas in February 2013 (dir. Tom Hooper). But a thousand pages will be a massive challenge to pack into 130 minutes of moving pictures. Joe Wright, the director of Anna Karenina, chose a very creative way of doing so. Most of the scenes are staged inside a theatre, definitely adding a sense of theatricality and drama. And, at the same time, this meaningful location emphasises the artificiality of which the strict social order and rules in Russian society have been accused. 


We will have to wait and see if he succeeded in bringing Tolstoy's vision of Russia, of marriage and infidelity, of love and betrayal to life. Catch a glimpse of it here:

 

Joe Wright is smitten with writers and the possibility to transform novels into films. Take Jane Austen, for instance. Pride & Prejudice, a novel Austen published in 1813, was made into a film by Wright in 2005. Ian McEwan's Atonement, written in 2001, was shown on the big screens in 2007. Both of them were hugely successful - Pride & Prejudice and Atonement grossed $120,051,592 and $129,266,061 respectively according to the imdb website. And since Keira Knightley starred in all of them, Wright must have thought: why not team up with his favourite actress once again? So he did (and with several other crew members of past films) and Anna Karenina is bound to be released in December this year, featuring not only Keira but also Matthew Macfadyen (her love interest in Pride & Prejudice), Aaron Taylor-Johnson - seen and admired in Nowhere Boy (by his spouse Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2009) and recently in cinemas in Oliver Stone's Savages - as well as Jude Law portraying Anna's husband.

Keira Knightley's obvious predilection for roles in costume, could, however, work against a positive reception of her performance. As friends told me she was rather "dangerously annoying" in Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method (2011), I would wish for a similar touching performance as she delivered in Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, 2010) or Last Night (Massy Tadjedin, 2010). Literary adaptations seem to be double-edged sword for Keira, so maybe the unconventional form of this historical film will help her touching a new height in her career.

I'm finishing this post with another quote. This time from the official trailer of the film: 

Count Vronsky: I love you.  
Anna Karenina: Why?  
Count Vronsky: You can't ask why about love.

Want to see Aaron Taylor-Johnson as John Lennon? It's definitely worth a look: