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Anna Karenina

H

Hearth Cricket

New Member
Has anyone a favourite movie version of Anna Karenina? I have seen two different ones, so far. The recent Masterpiece Theatre one, which I did not care for, at all, as it made Anna seem selfish, and the so-called "Princesses" all seemed poor and dressed as commoners. But I just watched the 1997 version, starring Sophie Marceau, and though a shorter version, it was much more powerful, Anna was very pretty, Vronksy quite the distinguished millitary man, and Anna came across as a true tragic heroine-much like Tess. The aristocracy lived in lovely homes and they wore fancy dresses, snuggled up in fur coats, etc. The soundtrack was all russian classical music, too. Fantastic version, IMO. :)
 
Hearth Cricket said:
Has anyone a favourite movie version of Anna Karenina? I have seen two different ones, so far. The recent Masterpiece Theatre one, which I did not care for, at all, as it made Anna seem selfish, and the so-called "Princesses" all seemed poor and dressed as commoners. But I just watched the 1997 version, starring Sophie Marceau, and though a shorter version, it was much more powerful, Anna was very pretty, Vronksy quite the distinguished millitary man, and Anna came across as a true tragic heroine-much like Tess. The aristocracy lived in lovely homes and they wore fancy dresses, snuggled up in fur coats, etc. The soundtrack was all russian classical music, too. Fantastic version, IMO. :)
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Anna was ! selfish and they deserved each other . Top five novels definately.
 
Emm, I recently watched one version, 3months ago. I borrowed it from the public library. It was a very old version, black and white film, actually. Not very good though.

I have seen other version which was not played by Marceau. And I could not remember who played Anna in that movie, since I watched it at about 15 or so.

I do not think Anna is selfish person!! I am strongly against this opinion!!
 
To be specific, Anna was a woman like any other women in the world, who wanted to live a life for herself, who wanted to live a life of love, romantic or sensual; who wanted to enjoy the love with her lover.

Just think, how could one live with someone like her husband,(what's his name? :rolleyes: ) ? One would be [COLOR=DarkRed]SUFFORCATED, AND DROWNED [/COLOR] in a life that was like distilled water.

She just attempted to love even for only once. ---I had not much impression that she loved her husband when they married.

To me, Anna was escaping, or was fleeing with a hope or a despaire, just like Eustacia's flee to her dreamy morning in France, in the novel The Return to the Native, by Thomas Hardy.

Thatis what on my mind now.
 
watercrystal said:
To be specific, Anna was a woman like any other women in the world, who wanted to live a life for herself, who wanted to live a life of love, romantic or sensual; who wanted to enjoy the love with her lover.

Just think, how could one live with someone like her husband,(what's his name? :rolleyes: ) ? One would be [COLOR=DarkRed]SUFFORCATED, AND DROWNED [/COLOR] in a life that was like distilled water.

She just attempted to love even for only once. ---I had not much impression that she loved her husband when they married.

To me, Anna was escaping, or was fleeing with a hope or a despaire, just like Eustacia's flee to her dreamy morning in France, in the novel The Return to the Native, by Thomas Hardy.

Thatis what on my mind now.
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True, but you still have to admit that she is pretentious if nothing else. :)

Apple?
 
True@1stLight said:
True, but you still have to admit that she is pretentious if nothing else. :)

Apple?
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Yeah, apple. :)

But how come she is pretentious. No, I do not get that impression from the book or from the novel. Weird. :rolleyes:
 
watercrystal said:
Emm, I recently watched one version, 3months ago. I borrowed it from the public library. It was a very old version, black and white film, actually. Not very good though.

I have seen other version which was not played by Marceau. And I could not remember who played Anna in that movie, since I watched it at about 15 or so.

I do not think Anna is selfish person!! I am strongly against this opinion!!
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Anna would have been a complete nightmare of a wife . Selfish,jealous ,pretentious. She adored the idea of being outcast from "her "society as long as Vronsky remained with her and her alone and never crossed the line back to his idea of his perfect life . This is why she took the selfish vindictive way out.
 
To be specific, Anna was a woman like any other women in the world, who wanted to live a life for herself, who wanted to live a life of love, romantic or sensual; who wanted to enjoy the love with her lover.

Just think, how could one live with someone like her husband,(what's his name? ) ? One would be SUFFORCATED, AND DROWNED in a life that was like distilled water.

She just attempted to love even for only once. ---I had not much impression that she loved her husband when they married.
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I understand that the society she lived in put limitations on her, but she still had choices . She was aware of the consequences of her actions, and because of that I don't feel sorry for her at all. Her husband gave her room to share that love with her lover, but it wasn't enough for her. She wanted it all. What irritated me was that she couldn't accept that she couldn't have it all - to be freely and openly be with Vronsky and keep her status in society.

The impression I got was she was once happy with her husband. Maybe she wasn't as passionate with Alexandrovich as she was with Vronsky, but who says passion is everything? I understand that her husband's cold demeanor and his inability to express his emotions pushed her away, but only thinking of herself and living life for herself is selfishness - not that being selfish is bad - but in her case, it led to her unhappiness. And why choose a route in life that will make you unhappy? If she didn't know it would end up so muddled then she didn't think her situation through enough, and she's stupid for that too. And she put herself in that situation, why couldn't she just suck it up? Accept her decisions and live with them?

I don't think that her husband was that bad at all. I think his only failing was that he was too cold with her, too rational. If he had just let himself be without rationalizing his feelings, and if he had expressed his feelings to Anna that things would've been different, or at least they would have had a chance. He was jealous but he thought jealousy was beneath him so instead of telling Anna, he made it seem like he was only concerned of what people would think. Levin on the other hand talked to his wife about his jealousy -when he was jealous of one of their summer guests (granted Kitty wasn't cheating) - and in a sense it brought them closer instead of pulling them apart.

Anyway, my point is, yes she wanted to experience a passionate love affair, but she didn't go about it the right way. It sucks that we are all not free to do as we please but sometimes we have to play by some of life's rules in order to not drive ourselves over the edge. And Anna not being able to acknowledge and accept that and not being able to live with her choices looked weak in my eyes. It's really hard for me to sympathize with her when she just makes mistake after mistake. But she's a great character though, because even though she annoys the hell out of me, she's very real.

Oh and I still have 200 and so pages to go but this is my impression of her so far.
 
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