Le projet 'Anna Karenina'

Joe Wright: "It fascinates me. I’m reading at the moment, I’m hoping to do Anna Karenina in the Autumn and I’m reading about St. Petersburg society in the 18th century. There they imported a complete foreign mode of behavior. They all decided suddenly that they were going to be French. They divided their brain into two halves, the Russian half and the French half. The Russian half was always aware of what the French half was doing, how they were performing, how they were exhibiting their manners. I personally find that acting is an art form that is underestimated and overlooked in terms of its potential and what it can teach us about who we are as human beings."

Can you do Anna Karenina in two hours, or even three?

Joe Wright: "You can if you’ve got Tom Stoppard writing. He’s done an amazing script which involves Levin’s story as well as Anna’s story. Yeah, Tom Stoppard is just..also, he’s so immersed in Russian history and culture and identity or lack of it."

Will it be a challenge to make that accessible?

Joe Wright: "No, because I think Tolstoy wrote it as an accessible piece. It’s a family drama. War and Peace was his big political drama and Anna Karenina, as he says in the first sentence, is about families. 'Happy families are all happy in the same way. Unhappy families are all unhappy in different ways.' So he wrote it to be read by the new emerging literate Russian population. Obviously, it goes off into analytical theoretical studies of the Russian agricultural system which I won’t involve in the script. But the actual plot of it is fairly simple and very emotional."

What are the accents going to be? Russian?

Joe Wright: "No, because they didn’t even have Russian accents. The high society was quite French. They didn’t even speak Russian. A lot of them literally didn’t learn their own language so couldn’t talk to their own serfs, their own peasants, because they didn’t speak the same language. So the whole language issue is actually a really fertile one for that society. But I think they’ll be talking English, probably, with English accents. The problem is what you get the peasants to speak, the peasant characters and whether you have them speak the same language or whether you have them do really dodgy kind of west country English accents. They’re more difficult. I might have them speak Russian. I’m not sure."

Who’s your Anna?

Joe Wright: "Not sure yet. It’s fairly obvious, but I can’t quite say. She hasn’t signed on the line yet. I’m loyal to my actors."

The first days of filming for the mowing in Anna Karenina took place this week. Thirty mowers and haymakers from around the country were brought together with their scythes to create the scenes where Levin joins a large team of Russian mowers cutting and making hay.

Wright’s next project will again be taken from a great work of literature, as was his Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice and Atonment (from Ian McEwan’s novel) was. The new film will be adapted from the Russian novel Anna Karenina, and will star another Atonement (and Chanel fragrance commercial) leading lady Keira Knightly.

Wright will focus on the multi-stranded nature of the novel, incorporating all the other characters’ stories, not just Anna’s. He notes that the screenplay — which is being written by that no-talent hack playwright/screenwriter Tom Stoppard — will feel Robert Altmanesque in structure. Wright is a fan — and was a good friend — of Altman.

“I quite like the idea of blanding all the characters and make it more of an ensemble piece,” he explains.

FILMING WILL BE STARTING END OF AUGUST THROUGH TILL END OF DECEMBER

Trapped in a loveless marriage, Anna, looks for a better life, but finds only a more complicated one.

Calling all Russians
Last week Working Title announced that Joe Wright had cast Keira Knightley, Jude Law and Aaron Johnson in his new Anna Karenina. Now it's time to fill the hundreds of other roles in Tolstoy's epic. A call has gone out to London's Russian community for extras for filming in the city this autumn. An open casting will be held tomorrow at St Clement Church in Treadgold Street, West London where the director will be looking for opera singers, pianists and "actual Russian folk singers", among others. The day rate is £100 (more for musicians) and those auditioning should look the part. "We would like the men to grow their hair, including facial, for the casting," the brief adds.

• Casting Network for "Anna Karenina " (Ru-Talk.com, 2 aout 2011)
  
• Extras needed for Anna Karenina (Circus Space, 17 septembre 2011)

Although there are no specific circus roles at the moment, there is potential for some to be incorporated into the film. Joe (Wright) will be at the casting on 17th September, choosing specific and more generic roles and he might well use the opportunity then to think how to incorporate any circus performers into the film.

Seamus is currently shooting for Joe Wright’s adaptation of the Tolstoy classic ‘Anna Karenina’ starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law and Aaron Johnson. McGarvey, Knightley and Wright all previously worked together on the set of ‘Atonement’.

Director Joe Wright said he wanted to use authentic extras in the scenes due to be filmed in November and December.
An open casting will take place on 29 October at the Cowley Road Methodist Church in Oxford.

Extras can earn more than £100 a day and will get free food and drink during the filming but they are expected to start early and require a great deal of patience as there can be lots of waiting on set.

Snath Making for Anna Karenina
Posted on August 6, 2011 by stevetomlin
The first days of filming for the mowing in Anna Karenina took place this week. Thirty mowers and haymakers from around the country were brought together with their scythes to create the scenes where Levin joins a large team of Russian mowers cutting and making hay.[...]
With all of that work to get through I was last into makeup and on to the set so the line of mowers were already in place across the dressed meadow and I was filmed for just a short time, passing right by the camera. This meant I had time and a great position to watch the action as the scythes swept across the field. This was probably the biggest team of scythes that the UK has seen for 50 years or more and it certainly looked impressive, especially as the crew worked hard to get everyone mowing in sync. For me it was especially pleasing to know my snaths were out there working and get such a lot of positive feedback from people afterwards.

It was fascinating to see how things worked behind the scenes and to watch how they transformed us into Russian peasants – some needed less work than others!

Lawnmower Men from Dan Merry on Vimeo.

We aren’t allowed to show photos of the shooting of Anna Karenina before the film comes out. But any excuse will do to print this photo of Hungarians mowing rye by Erno Vadas, which conveys something of what the director was trying to achieve.

The casting session was entirely open to the public but the producers did also specifically contact the Oxford University Russian Society to encourage students to attend.
...Those that are selected to take part in the filming ( at Didcot Heritage Railway) will be paid £100 for each of the four days of filming which will begin on the 11th November.

Luce a écrit:Au mois d'août, a été tournée une scène mythique du livre !
Entre juin et octobre 2011,sur le blog Scytherspace, on en apprend beaucoup sur le recrutement des figurants, mais aussi sur le maniement de la faux, des difficultés techniques à la jouissance du travail bien fait ! (merci à Steve Tomlin )