Le projet 'Anna Karenina'

Keira Knightley, as Anna Karenina, emerges from the mist, her gaze focussed on her husband — and her lover — played by Jude Law and Aaron Johnson, respectively.

The actress is wearing an embroidered coat that sweeps the floor, a hat trimmed in fox fur — and £1 million worth of Chanel gems, dangling from her ears.

The costume designer, Jacqueline Durran, has at the request of director Joe Wright, created a hybrid look for Keira, in which 1870s style meets fitted Fifties couture, and the result is stunning.

Anna Karenina is Tolstoy’s giant meditation on the aspects of love, and Keira, now 26, is clearly up to the task of playing one of the greatest heroines in literature.

I’ve been following Keira’s career for years, but as I stood looking at her on the set of Anna Karenina, something had changed. The film’s hair and make-up designer Ivana Primorac articulated my thoughts. ‘Keira looks like a proper woman,’ she says

Director Joe Wright, who is filming the train station scene at Shepperton studios, tells me: ‘There’s fire in Keira’s belly.’

He’s directing her for the third time, having worked with her on Pride And Prejudice and Atonement.

And he agrees that Keira has grown up. ‘She’s her own woman — she’s got so much fight in her at the moment,’ he says, as he watches her being framed by Seamus McGarvey, the director of photography, and camera operator Peter Robertson.

He tells me that Keira’s taken a lot of stick in England, in the years since they last worked together.

‘A lot of young actors would have gone “Up yours!’ and gone off to Hollywood. But she braved it out, and it has made her stronger — and fiercer,’ Wright adds, with a slightly nervous laugh.

The director believes Keira is more than ready to play Anna — but not a 20th-century feminist version of Anna, ‘following her heart’.

‘As far as Tolstoy was concerned, he was writing a book about a woman who was a sinner — a fallen woman,’ Wright says. ‘He wasn’t writing about her as a heroine. He started off writing this book about a good husband and a bad wife. But then, as he wrote, he fell in love with Anna.’

Wright’s basing his version of Tolstoy’s great novel on a powerful screenplay by Tom Stoppard, in which the playwright gives equal weight to the parallel stories of Anna’s cuckolding of her husband Karenin (Law), and her passionate affair with Count Vronsky (Johnson), and also the romance between Levin (Domhnall Gleeson) and Kitty (Alicia Vikander).

Stoppard’s view is that most previous versions made the mistake of favouring Anna’s story over Levin’s. ‘Tom turned in one draft and it was all there,’ marvels producer Paul Webster.

Tim Bevan of Working Title, who is making the film for Focus Films and Universal, told me it’s the first time Wright has worked with a great screenplay. ‘Joe’s had good scripts, but this is a great one,’ says Bevan, a man not known for idle overstatement.

Wright and his long-time design collaborator Sarah Greenwood checked out locations in St Petersburg, and stately homes in the UK (particularly in Yorkshire) which could double as Russian homes.

But the more Wright studied Russian cultural history, the more he realised he didn’t want to shoot a conventional costume drama.

The eureka moment came as he pored over Orlando Figes’s study of Russian cultural history, Natasha’s Dance, which suggested the aristocrats of St Petersburg in the 1870s were more western European in their behaviour than Russian.

‘The aristocrats spoke Italian, English and French — and Russian only to the serfs. There was a sense that they were always playing parts,’ producer Webster explained.

So Wright hit on the idea of doing an expressionistic version of Anna Karenina, emphasising that theatricality. Greenwood designed a theatre on a soundstage at Shepperton, from which the action would flow. You go through a door and there’s a train station; go through another and there’s a snowy street, or a forest of silver birch.

While most of the filming was done on lavish sets, there were real life locations, too; and some shooting is being done in Russia, for the more naturalistic scenes involving Levin and Kitty.

The scenes I watched looked amazing. Ornate tableaux peopled with extras of Russian heritage, all choreographed to move in a certain way.

And the cast is as rich as Greenwood’s sets. Ruth Wilson plays Princess Betsy; Olivia Williams is Countess Vronsky; Emily Watson plays Countess Lydia; Kelly Macdonald is Dolly; and Matthew Macfadyen, Oblonsky.

Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery has been cast as Princess Myagkaya, while her former co-star Thomas Howes (William, the ill-fated footman) plays Yashvin.

Keira has taken on another difficult role in the upcoming movie Anna Karenina. It’s based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy and the actress has been reading up on psychoanalysis to help her with the part.
She has worked with director Joe Wright before, on movies Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, and worries about giving the film her all.
“We’re all very aware that it’s an incredibly difficult part and an incredibly difficult piece, and very often it hasn’t worked,” she said. “But we have a brilliant team and a great group of actors, and we’re going to do our best.”

Luce a écrit:Interview by Ian Nathan.

Above all, the film is instilled with the genius of Powell & Pressburger for breaking the rules but never breaking the spell of the story: the way The Red Shoes (loosely based on AK) can slip the bounds of its reality to become a fairy tale as Moira Sheared dances herself into a frenzy. "They are always going to be an inspiration," says Wright. "You look to your own, what there is to be proud of in your culture." (source)

Fresh from a trip to the depths of the Arctic Circle with Jude Law and Keira Knightley, where they are filming Anna Karenina, Sarah talks to us about her passions, projects and inspirations.

What are you working on at the moment?
I have just finished the last weeks on Joe Wright’s latest film; a Tom Stoppard adaptation of Anna Karenina. We have been in Northern Russia 100km south of the Arctic circle in minus 35. Amazing! I’ve just arrived back and am planning to take a few months off to get a life.

What’s next for you?
A break! After finishing this Chanel No 5 commercial that I am doing with Joe and the same team that did Anna Karenina.

What’s your reaction to the Government’s proposal that British film industry funding should be aimed at films most likely to be commercially successful?
How do they know which ones are going to be commercially successful. If anyone knew that we’d all be amazingly rich Producers!! It is a ridiculous restriction to put on any art, there has to be room for all aspects of film making as there is huge interconnection between genres of filming… an example; last week when we were holed up in a cabin on a frozen lake in Russia shooting the final scenes of Anna Karenina, sitting around the table were Paul Webster ( Producer ) Seamus Mcgarvey (DOP), me (Production Designer) and Niall Moroney (Supervising Art Director), we were drinking vodka and chatting about Derek Jarman. Paul was cast in Jubilee as a punk, Seamus shot ‘Blue’, Niall spent an evening at an exhibition with him, and I was taught by him for my final year project at Wimbledon. All our lives were so influenced and touched by him, and here we all were on a lake making our big commercial Hollywood film. If we follow through on the government restrictions there will be no more Derek Jarmens to touch and feed our lives.

01st November 2011
Anna Karenina
We are pleased to be working on the feature film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's book of the same name 'Anna Karenina' starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law.

We have already provided several newborn babies for the film and our Carl worked as a stand-in and body double for one the principal children last week.

Carl's Mum said 'Carl has had the time of his life filming with Keira Knightley (envy of any man on this planet!). Sad that its over but whats more important is he knows for sure that he wants to work in the film industry. He totally admires director Joe Wright. Thank you for this amazing opportunity for Carl which has really had a huge positive impact on his future'.

I was asked to carve a wooden puppet – a toy horse – to be used in Joe Wright’s upcoming film of Anna Karenina. It turned out to be a very enjoyable job to do. Just as exciting was the experience of being an extra in the film. I was playing a puppet-maker, of course.

Luce a écrit:D'après IMDb, Pierre Rousselot, le Lorrain, est remplacé par Seamus McGarvey à la photographie.

Au mois de juin dernier, Philippe Rousselot, AFC, ASC, commençait la préparation d’un film à Londres. Il s’est lancé dans l’écriture de notes, une sorte de journal de bord avec, en tête, la Lettre de l’AFC. Le hasard faisant bien les choses, la publication de ce journal en ce début mars vient à point nommé éclairer d’une lumière singulière l’annonce de la rétrospective que la Cinémathèque française organise, en partenariat avec l’AFC, à partir de ce 28 mars.

Il est devenu évident que je ne peux plus travailler, et qu’il me faut rentrer en France et me faire opérer. Seamus Mc. Garvey, rattrapé au vol, me remplacera. Journée déchirante et déchirée. Il est convenu que je vais attendre Seamus pour lui remettre mes notes, ce que je ferai dans une semi conscience due aux médicaments. Les studios de Shepperton, auxquels je n’avais guère prêtés attention, prennent les couleurs d’un paradis perdu.

Over the weekend of 5-6 November, Tristan was also involved in a new production of Anna Karenina at Shepperton Studios. The film is directed by Joe Wright and stars Jude Law and Keira Knightley. Tristan played percussion as part of a small ensemble of musicians, in scenes set in a bohemian Parisian theatre in the early 1900s.

Tristan Parkes“I was working directly with award winning film composer Dario Marianelli which was rather nerve-wracking," Tristan said. "The film is entirely set in a theatre and the set is stunning - they've built a theatre to scale in a large studio out at Shepperton. I found myself playing alongside some can-can dancers, a Cleopatra routine with a live snake and an authentic to the period clown scene. My final scene was alongside Ruth Wilson who played Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse, to which I recently took my first year Extended Diploma students.

“It was a fantastic experience, though long days from 5am to 10pm. I learned a great deal about filmmaking and how live music is integrated into the filming process. We played live in some takes and mimed the music in others so dialogue could be recorded – I never imagined miming would be more difficult than playing.”

Luce a écrit: Le nouveau DVD Les chaussons rouges vient de sortir en France. La restauration HD est présentée par Martin Scorsese.

David Cronenberg, who directed Knightley in A Dangerous Method, recently caught up with the 27-year-old actress at home in London where she was enjoying some downtime after wrapping Anna Karenina in December.

CRONENBERG: So was this version of Anna Karenina done in a big epic way?

KNIGHTLEY: It is sort of done in an epic way, but it was pretty much all done on one set, so it's also a very stylized, deeply theatrical kind of piece. It was the opposite of A Dangerous Method in some ways, I think, with a million different shots and, you know, there's just a completely different vibe. Sabina and Anna are not similar, but there is this similar idea of the mind turning against the person, which seems to be a theme in what I'm doing at the moment. But the actual way of making Anna Karenina was completely different from how we made A Dangerous Method.

CRONENBERG: Did you look at any of the other adaptations of Anna Karenina that have been done?

KNIGHTLEY: I saw a couple of versions ages ago. I've seen the one that was on TV in England with Helen McCrory playing Anna, and she's wonderful. I also saw the Greta Garbo version, but years and years ago. I didn't want to see it again just before I played the part because I thought if I did something similar that I would want it to be an accident, not because I've nicked it. But it's a very strange book, that one . . . I don't quite understand what Tolstoy's actual personal view of Anna is—whether he likes her or hates her, whether she's the heroine or the antiheroine. There are moments where he seems to despise her, and it's actually a book about a woman who is in some ways despicable, so playing it without trying to make it too nice or without trying to simplify it is actually kind of tricky. I think if it just turns into a romance that it's not as interesting as the actual story.

CRONENBERG: One could say, "Well, why does it matter what Tolstoy's point of view was?" But in a way, Tolstoy is the director of the book and Anna is the actress. I've been writing a novel myself. I started off my young career thinking I would be a novelist.

KNIGHTLEY: I didn't know that.

CRONENBERG: Yeah. The weird thing is that I find it very much like directing. You're casting it, you're dressing everyone, you're lighting it, you're finding the locations, you're figuring out what food they're eating. So thinking of Tolstoy as the director of his novel and you, the actress, trying to figure out what his attitude is to you. Does Joe Wright then become Tolstoy to you?

KNIGHTLEY: [laughs] Yeah, of course. I think the main thing in trying to do an adaptation of a book this size is determining what point Tolstoy was trying to make with this character. What purpose does this character have? Is the character meant to be seen in a good light or in a bad light? Is there any way we can combine the good and the bad within this person, because that's going to be more interesting? I think we were constantly questioning things in that way. So, yes, I suppose Joe did become a kind of a Tolstoy character.

CRONENBERG: Right, there's a lot more about Anna Karenina available in a very large book, which, strangely enough, makes Anna Karenina seem like more of a real person to a lot of people than Sabina.

KNIGHTLEY: Well, the thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human. They're full of flaws as much as they are full of heroics. I think the reason that people love them and hate them so much is because, in some way, they always see a mirror of themselves in them, and you can always understand them on some level. Sometimes it's a terrifyingly dark mirror that's held up. I think, in a way, that's what Anna is. I'm not sure that people would feel the same about Sabina.

The veteran UK producer talks about Salmon Fishing In The Yemen’s audience appeal; Jason Statham’s new side in Hummingbird; and Joe Wright’s inventive take on Anna Karenina.

After leaving Kudos/Shine (but before the Shoebox banner was set up) Webster also produced (alongside Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner) Wright’s Anna Karenina, which is now in final stages of post for a likely autumn festival debut. [Shoebox itself also continues a close relationship with Working Title.]

Of the Tolstoy adaptation, which stars Keira Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Johnson, Webster says: “aesthetically it’s an enormous leap forward for Joe. It’s very bold interpretation. Hopefully people will be wowed by it, the ambition is to do something different from the normal stately home period piece. The interpretation is very, very different, it’s very expressionistic and impressionistic.”

The film has a budget of about $40m and is expected to a prestige title that could attract awards attention at the end of the year.