Tolstoy's great classic runs to about 1000 pages, mostly providing a wealth of social commentary on upper class life in Imperial Russia in the nineteenth century. For non-Russian readers today to adequately follow this requires either a significantly longer book or (more realistically) the mass of explanatory footnotes, which some editions provide but few readers ever look at. No film running for about two hours can begin to do justice to such a work, the 26 films listed by IMDb, mostly concentrate on the tragic love affair and death of Anna herself. Literary critics tend to view the concurrent story of Levin (who is thought to be a partly autobiographical creation by Tolstoy himself) and Kitty as of least comparable significance, but this receives little attention in most of these films. Social commentary largely disappears except where created visually in banquet or ballroom scenes.
Readers of the book develop definite images of the important characters, so each version of the film generates comments that some characters were perfectly played whilst others were failures. In most cases such comments reflect pre-conceptions of the viewers and tend to cancel each out. Although readers of the book may be the most prolific critics, film-makers have recognised that the commercial success of their film will depend upon the drama associated with Anna's grand passion, rather than any of the other material in the novel.
SPOILER AHEAD There are two main threads in the book - Anna and dashing Count Vronsky, a suitor of her friend Kitty Scherbatsky, unexpectedly fall in love. Anna seeks divorce, but her rigid and upright husband will not play. She leaves him, as well as her son who still needs her love and support, to live with Vronsky, but becomes a social outcast who is very lonely. When she fears she is losing Vronsky's love she commits suicide. Meanwhile Kitty's other suitor Levin steps in and marries her, he is a somewhat introspective farmer haunted by his past and struggling with his religious convictions, she is a wise loving wife who gives him necessary support. A third but slighter thread in the book is the story of Anna's philandering brother Stefan and his wife Dolly. Reduced to these few lines the book sounds like a lurid paperback with paper thin characters, this is of course nonsense but indicates the difficulty of doing justice to a major classic novel within the confines of a conventional movie.
Among the 26 film versions mentioned above, three are particularly significant. The first was directed by Clarence Brown in 1935 with Greta Garbo and Basil Rathbone in the parts of Karenina and Karenin. A U.K. film, directed by Julien Duvivier and released in 1948, featured Ralph Richardson and Vivien Leigh as Karenin and his wife. More recently Warner has made a colour version, filmed in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with Sophia Morceau playing Anna. All these run for a little under two hours. There have also been two mini-series versions originally produced for British TV in 1997 and 2000,. these have both been featured on PBS in the U.S.A. and are now available as DVD's. They clearly have more time to show some of the complexity of the original novel, but as with the actual book a viewer is unlikely to watch either of them in a single session (the 1997 version contains ten 50 minute sections). It would be unfair to compare them with the much shorter big-screen versions. Most North Americans regard the Greta Garbo version as the definitive one, but I have chosen to comment on that of Vivien Leigh because I feel Greta Garbo played Anna as too strong a character so that the unfolding events were a little unbelievable (one IMDb User has commented that GG was at her best when Anna was at her weakest). Vivien Leigh's performance shows some vulnerability in Anna's strong facade right from the start and makes the unfolding story more credible. I also feel Ralph Richardson gave a more sympathetic performance as Karinin, and is more credible as a husband who is to be pitied because his difficulty in showing love eventually leads to an inability to receive it.
Ultimately the main conclusion one must draw after watching either one or multiple versions of this film is that the original novel is too vast and complex to show adequately on the screen. However there is one other conclusion which I feel should be noted. For me the visual appeal of the cinema made this film version very effective in drawing attention to the largely undocumented unity that existed in post-Napoleonic Europe through the intermarriage not only of royalty but also of most of the aristocracy. It may not have spread down to ordinary citizens, but it was the aristocracy that provided the ruling classes and they tended to be on first name terms with their opposite numbers in most other European countries. This must have had an immense influence on all the political decisions made during this period, and the effect of World War I in destroying the influence and power of the historical ruling classes must have resulted in a great deal of fragmentation. Post World War 2 history has involved the re-creation of this feeling of European unity, but at a much more fundamental and democratic level. I never experienced this impression from reading Tolstoy's novel, but it became clear during the film through banquet and ballroom sequences in which the characters, who would all have been speaking French, were sophisticated cosmopolitan figures clearly wearing the latest in international fashions and deeply concerned about events far from their own country. One may lose a great deal condensing a book into a 2 hour film, but it may also provide an opportunity to bring out indirect aspects of the book that are of considerable historic interest.
Readers of the book develop definite images of the important characters, so each version of the film generates comments that some characters were perfectly played whilst others were failures. In most cases such comments reflect pre-conceptions of the viewers and tend to cancel each out. Although readers of the book may be the most prolific critics, film-makers have recognised that the commercial success of their film will depend upon the drama associated with Anna's grand passion, rather than any of the other material in the novel.
SPOILER AHEAD There are two main threads in the book - Anna and dashing Count Vronsky, a suitor of her friend Kitty Scherbatsky, unexpectedly fall in love. Anna seeks divorce, but her rigid and upright husband will not play. She leaves him, as well as her son who still needs her love and support, to live with Vronsky, but becomes a social outcast who is very lonely. When she fears she is losing Vronsky's love she commits suicide. Meanwhile Kitty's other suitor Levin steps in and marries her, he is a somewhat introspective farmer haunted by his past and struggling with his religious convictions, she is a wise loving wife who gives him necessary support. A third but slighter thread in the book is the story of Anna's philandering brother Stefan and his wife Dolly. Reduced to these few lines the book sounds like a lurid paperback with paper thin characters, this is of course nonsense but indicates the difficulty of doing justice to a major classic novel within the confines of a conventional movie.
Among the 26 film versions mentioned above, three are particularly significant. The first was directed by Clarence Brown in 1935 with Greta Garbo and Basil Rathbone in the parts of Karenina and Karenin. A U.K. film, directed by Julien Duvivier and released in 1948, featured Ralph Richardson and Vivien Leigh as Karenin and his wife. More recently Warner has made a colour version, filmed in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with Sophia Morceau playing Anna. All these run for a little under two hours. There have also been two mini-series versions originally produced for British TV in 1997 and 2000,. these have both been featured on PBS in the U.S.A. and are now available as DVD's. They clearly have more time to show some of the complexity of the original novel, but as with the actual book a viewer is unlikely to watch either of them in a single session (the 1997 version contains ten 50 minute sections). It would be unfair to compare them with the much shorter big-screen versions. Most North Americans regard the Greta Garbo version as the definitive one, but I have chosen to comment on that of Vivien Leigh because I feel Greta Garbo played Anna as too strong a character so that the unfolding events were a little unbelievable (one IMDb User has commented that GG was at her best when Anna was at her weakest). Vivien Leigh's performance shows some vulnerability in Anna's strong facade right from the start and makes the unfolding story more credible. I also feel Ralph Richardson gave a more sympathetic performance as Karinin, and is more credible as a husband who is to be pitied because his difficulty in showing love eventually leads to an inability to receive it.
Ultimately the main conclusion one must draw after watching either one or multiple versions of this film is that the original novel is too vast and complex to show adequately on the screen. However there is one other conclusion which I feel should be noted. For me the visual appeal of the cinema made this film version very effective in drawing attention to the largely undocumented unity that existed in post-Napoleonic Europe through the intermarriage not only of royalty but also of most of the aristocracy. It may not have spread down to ordinary citizens, but it was the aristocracy that provided the ruling classes and they tended to be on first name terms with their opposite numbers in most other European countries. This must have had an immense influence on all the political decisions made during this period, and the effect of World War I in destroying the influence and power of the historical ruling classes must have resulted in a great deal of fragmentation. Post World War 2 history has involved the re-creation of this feeling of European unity, but at a much more fundamental and democratic level. I never experienced this impression from reading Tolstoy's novel, but it became clear during the film through banquet and ballroom sequences in which the characters, who would all have been speaking French, were sophisticated cosmopolitan figures clearly wearing the latest in international fashions and deeply concerned about events far from their own country. One may lose a great deal condensing a book into a 2 hour film, but it may also provide an opportunity to bring out indirect aspects of the book that are of considerable historic interest.