Un film de Joe Wright

This year the Little Angel Puppet Theatre in London, described as the home of British puppetry, reaches its 50th anniversary. It was founded by John and Lyndie Wright, the parents of the director Joe Wright whose films include Atonement, Pride and Prejudice and Hanna. Kirsty talks to puppeteer and director at the theatre, Ronnie Le Drew, the Royal Shakespeare Company's Greg Doran and mother and son Joe and Lyndie Wright about the continued success of the theatre and Joe reveals that growing up in a puppet theatre not only moulded the way he directs films but also leads him to treat his actors like puppets.

And while Knightley speaks with an accent she says is "mid-Atlantic, with a Russian blush" in Joe Wright's upcoming "Anna Karenina," she and the rest of the cast -- Jude Law, Aaron Johnson, Matthew Macfadyen, Olivia Williams and Emily Watson -- will be using their native English accents for the film. The director had hinted he was going to ditch attempts at a Russian accent last spring, and while purists may be fixated on that point, Knightley teased that it is just a small part of a much bigger vision that will give an "Anna Karenina" unlike anything we've seen before.

"He's got a very different concept than anything that's been done before, I'm only going to say that because I'm pretty sure they're going to start releasing things soon about the concept, so you'll get to see it," the actress said. "I'm not going to try and describe what it is, but it's a much more theatrical version of the piece than has been done before, and I was really excited by that."

You and the director Joe Wright have worked on a couple of amazing literary adaptations ["Pride and Prejudice" and "Atonement"], but when he came to you and said, "Let's make 'Anna Karenina,'" did you think, "Now you're just getting hubristic"?
It's a really hard one. We just finished it before Christmas and it was really, really hard, which is kind of great, 'cause that's what you want it to be. Just the fact of getting a book that's 820 pages down to a script that's 130 is a feat in itself. It's very difficult. He came in with an amazing concept that's totally out there and very risky and I thought, "Yeah, let's go for it." Why not? You might as well give it a go.

Can you tell us more about the concept?
Nope. I'm not going to tell you anything. I think they'll be releasing things quite soon, but I'm pretty sure they don't want me saying anything. It's definitely a much more theatrical telling, it's not a straight telling, which I think really works well.

She doesn’t shy away from appreciating Joe’s hardwork in his forthcoming magnum opus, Anna Karenina. “It’s extraordinary, I have been watching the rough cuts and I’m really excited about it,” she gushes.

Even more period self-destruction awaits in Anna Karenina, the remake she and Jude Law have wrapped for Joe Wright (who also Wrighted her in Pride and Prejudice and Atonement). "It's a very different version," Knightley told me. "There's definitely a concept behind it that's different from the others." Perhaps a story within a story? "No, but yes, but no," she responded, obliquely.

A travers l'étude d’œuvres artistiques (peinture, musique, littérature, cinéma), l'auteur fait ressortir les tensions de la culture russe : entre slavophiles et européanistes, entre Saint Pétersbourg et Moscou. L'auteur insiste également sur la fascination exercée sur les intellectuels par la paysannerie au milieu du 19e siècle.
Enfin, l'ouvrage contient des portraits d'artistes très saisissants (Tolstoï, Tcheckov, Dostoïevski, etc.). Un livre excellent, remarquablement documenté et synthétique, pour les novices en matière d'histoire et de culture russe.

The cottage next door to the Little Angel is where the award-winning director of Atonement, Joe Wright, grew up helping his parents in the workshop after school. The nostalgia of that childhood will be evident in Wright's upcoming adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which will have puppets as well as Keira Knightley.

Kirsty Lang reports on how puppets have entered the theatrical mainstream.

She speaks to Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones of the Handspring Company, who made the puppets for the international theatre hit War Horse and to Joe Wright, director of the films Atonement and Hanna, whose new cinema version of Anna Karenina features puppets in a central role.

Wright says all his films are influenced by growing up in a puppet theatre - the Little Angel Theatre in London. Kirsty pays a visit and meets Joe's mother, Lyndie Wright, who founded the theatre in 1961 with her husband John Wright. She also discovers an unexpected link between the Little Angel and the award-winning War Horse puppets.

Matthieu a écrit:Puppets take centre stage (BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, 6 janvier 2012).
Comment ai-je pu rater ça ?

In the commentary from his first feature film (Pride and Prejudice) director Joe Wright discusses how he uses his knowledge of art history to try and compose his shots after classical paintings. Can you see it in his works?

ELLE.com spoke to Knightley recently at the Waldorf Astoria

Next up for Knightley is the November 9 release of Anna Karenina. “You won’t be able to imagine what [director Joe Wright] has done with it,” she said. “He’s going for a very theatrical—not a naturalistic—take on it. It’s very stylized and right out there as a kind of look. The first time we worked together, on Pride & Prejudice, there wasn’t any pressure, so anything better than shit was amazing! The second time we worked together, on Atonement, everyone was like, ‘It’s an unfilmable novel, who is James McAvoy, it’s going to be crap,’ so again, no pressure. This time, everyone’s going, ‘It’s going to be great,’ so we’re like, ‘Oh nooo!’ So if we’re going to go down in flames, let’s really go down in flames. I’m really excited about it and supportive of his choices.”

I've been in my cutting room for six months with my new film, Anna Karenina. I generally don't watch films whilst I'm making one.

For his adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, director Joe Wright looked at Russian and English locations, then decided to film it in a Shepperton studio transformed into a theatre. The result is fluid and compelling

Artistic doubts, money worries, producers tearing their hair out – the new film of Anna Karenina had hit the buffers. Then the director, Joe Wright, had a eureka moment. Sally Williams tells the inside story