Anna Karénine

Rumor had it that Vivien Leigh was not anxious to take on the remake of "Anna Karenina" partly because she had just recovered from tuberculosis, and maybe also because the ghost of Greta Garbo was too real. But she had one film left to do for Alexander Korda, and this was it. "Anna Karenina" released in 1948, stars Leigh as the tragic Anna. The story is based on Tolstoy's novel. Anna meets a handsome colonel, Count Vronsky (Kieron Moore) and falls in love with him. The trouble is, she is married to a high-level Russian bureaucrat (Ralph Richardson) and has a son. Anna's husband is a self-absorbed politician type, somewhat cold and aloof, consumed with his image in Russian politics. He sees marriage as a "duty" something he says a few times. Anna runs away with Vronksy, a horrendous scandal at the time and probably still would be today. It all ends tragically. Comparisons between this film and the 1935 one are inevitable. While both films are respectable, I prefer Viven Leigh's performance of Anna. Perhaps it was because Leigh had her own personal demons that she made this part so amazingly real, as she would in "A Streetcar named Desire" three years later. While I admire Garbo, I did not think of her as a great actress. Too aloof in some ways to believe she would fall head over heels for Vronsky. Ralph Richardson plays his part with consummate discipline; he can only see Anna's betrayal in terms of how it effects him. Kieron Moore is harder to judge. In the first part of the movie, he isn't given much to do except show off his good looks. He does, however, get a few good scenes as the movie progresses, and plays Vronksy as a decent man but also a flawed one. If you only know the 1935 version of this film, at least be open-minded enough to give this remake a chance. For me, Viven Leigh was reason enough for me to see it.

A married woman (Vivien Leigh)'s affair with a dashing young officer has tragic results.

I read the novel several years ago in all its glory, but apparently most of it failed to stick with me because watching this film felt like i was hearing the story for the first time. And with there being so many different versions of the story on film, I am surprised I had not seen one before. (Unless I forgot those, too!) This seems like it must be the definitive version. The elegance, the intrigue. This is what I picture the aristocracy to be like. I love that they engage in seances, because that is such an upper class thing to do in the late 1800s. And Vivien Leigh? The perfect casting for a lead.

It has always struck me as a pity that whenever film versions of "Anna Karenina" are discussed it is Greta Garbo's of 1935 that excites critical attention rather than Vivien Leigh's. I suppose this is inevitable given that Garbo's is the more memorable performance, but in all other respects I find Julien Duvivier's 1948 version the finer film. It was the first one I saw and got to know really well, so much so that when I finally caught up with the Clarence Brown film I loathed it by comparison. It somehow epitomised the worst of M-G-M by being so studio bound and schmaltzy whereas Duvivier seemed to have made every effort to give his a feeling for 19th century Russian atmosphere. Andrej Andrejew's art direction had a real period sense of style and the music score by Constant Lambert with its echoes of "The Five" was a world away from the Herbert Stothart syrup. But by far the biggest plus of the 1948 version is the magisterial performance by Ralph Richardson as Karanin which stands beside his other two great roles of the same period, that of Dr Sloper in "The Heiress" and Baines the butler in "The Fallen Idol". His Karenin is not the arrogant brute of Basil Rathbone's (too close to his Murdstone in "David Copperfield" made in the same year) but a deceived husband evoking pity through his inability to be loved. Even Kieron Moore's rather colourless Vronsky scores over Frederic March's as it suggests the character's innate weakness rather than his romantic dash. If the Duvivier film has a serious flaw it is the rather prissy "upper class" delivery of dialogue by the female characters. Even Vivien Leigh's Anna suffers from this. I have a theory that the fault may lie in Duvivier as I have noticed repeatedly how directors whose native language is not English fail to control the nuances of speech when directing an English language film. Antonioni's "Blow Up" and the dialogue of Harvey Keitel in "Angelopoulos's "Ulysses Gaze" are examples. Interestingly the version recently shown on the British Carlton Films TV channel restored an additional 15 minutes to the version I had previously known, mainly early scenes that established minor characters with greater clarity. However the most significant restoration was a closing shot held considerably longer, thus giving that additional weight to the final tragedy that a really thoughtful director of Duvivier's calibre must have originally intended.

Count Tolstoy's massive novels, "War and Peace," and "Anna Karenina" are personally quite challenging.

Here are breathtakingly crafted literary works in a spiritual context of unconstructive energy. It's quite easy to become as entranced within these "worlds" as are many music lovers within the skewed terrain of Wagner's Valhalla and Nibelungens.

Tolstoy's words pull in the reader almost hypnotically as he spins his titanic, subtle tales of societal mores conflicting with human emotions.

Many of his characters are self-absorbed and vain, and his social environments repressive and stolid, with false values that tragically dehumanize and destroy.

So it's an ultimate challenge to attempt to separate these energetic downers from their dazzling technical counterparts.

In the case of "Anna," after stripping away the polished veneer, I find characters trying to cope with their testy emotional choices while being thwarted by inhuman societal standards.

Yet "Anna" is a favorite of filmmakers, having been done countless times, with the Garbo-Selznick version the most notable. Here Vivien Leigh gives a creditable performance of this distraught heroine, with Director Julien Duvivier joining Jean Anuith in script adaptation.

Ralph Richardson and Kieron Moore are both completely substantial, and general production values are attended to with solid professionalism.

Alas, the enactment seldom tugs heartstrings and, in fact, a strangely turgid pall seems to hang over the entire production. Condensing a 900-page novel down to 2-hour running time doesn't help matters.

As for Leigh, my feeling is that she gravitated too often to "fallen woman" roles. While she portrayed them very well, they may have failed to bring her the uplift her personality seemed to desperately seek. Hers was pretty much a career of depressingly joyless female characters, which perhaps worked not to her personal advantage.

That's another matter, though; Leigh was forever the consummate, fine actress, and her legacy is one of great artistic achievement.

This version of "Anna Karenina" remains a thoughtful, worthy attempt at a near-impossible task.

While certainly the vanities and indiscretions of upper crust Russia is examined by Tolstoy and it has been some time since I have read the lengthy novel, this version is certainly more memorable and effective than the Garbo version. I do agree with an earlier review in that Garbo herself, perhaps a bit too self-possessed and headstrong, could never represent the character of Anna, a woman carried away on passion, lust and impending tragedy.

Vivien Leigh is stunning in her facial expressions and vulnerable, almost exotic appearance, as we see her in a black gown, contrasted dramatically with other women who blend in the background to obscurity. The gowns and architecture of the era, the stark coldness and added texture of snowflakes, as a bas-relief to the portrait of Anna. Her close-ups particularly as she is in the train station in winter, foreshadowing her eventual fate.

Overall a beautiful film which is well worth viewing. Leigh is beautiful and tragic. 8/10.