For a literature loving, history dabbling, movie going dilettante, this year’s holiday movie line up is something to make a girl downright giddy. From Lincoln to Anna Karenina, The Hobbit to Life of PI, the Great Gatsby to Les Miserables, history and literature are hitting the big screen. 
In my comfiest jeans and cozy wool socks I have a date with myself for the matinee (more like 11am) showing of Anna Karenina. Settling into my seat I prepare myself to have an open mind about the film based on Tolstoy’s novel. Knowing there is absolutely no way 900 pages of characters and plot can be squeezed into a two hour film I set my hopes low. Maybe some good costumes and beautiful Russian scenery will entertain me for a few hours. I promise myself I will not get frustrated if Anna is portrayed as a victim of love and her oppressive culture rather than the complex moral being Tolstoy weaves. 
Folks (insert your best Stephen Colbert imitation here), this is my English teacher plea. Please read the book before you see the movie. The movie will give you all the wrong ideas about the book. Reading the book, though, might actually help you enjoy the movie more. The movie was made by people who seem to love the novel and want to highlight significant parts of the story, but there is no way this story can be translated to a two dimensional screen.
The major characters included in the film are well cast with some great actors. Jude Law's performance as Anna's husband is excellent. In fact, he is a much more powerful actor than Aaron Taylor-Johnson who plays Vronsky, the object of Anna's desire. Maybe this is on purpose. I am surprised by how many subtle nods are made to significant passages in the novel (Levin working in the fields with the peasants, Anna on the train with the paper knife, Kitty in the carriage, Karenin forgiving Anna, the peasant with the black face). Blink and you'll miss them or, at best, they will seem like meaningless visual adornment. Meaningful allusions seem disconnected and random without the knowledge of the fuller story behind it. Scenes such as Levin’s revelation of Kitty's character as she cares for his sick brother only become rich with the background from the novel. But then again, this is often the case when books become movies.
The absolute WORST part of the film is the artistic rendering of the story in an opera house. The story is rich enough with characters and landscape without confusing the audience by setting the whole story in an opera house. This theatrical approach is way too visually confusing. It distracts from rather than enhances the characters’ internal struggles.
One of the BEST parts of the film is the use of the train throughout the story as visual imagery and foreshadowing of Anna’s moral and mental decline. Don't miss the black faced peasant who crosses her path right after she meets Vronsky for the first time.
Gary Morson, the Northwestern professor who regularly packs classrooms of over 300 students to hear his lectures on Anna Karenina, writes that “great works of literature are characteristically written or read as both situated in and transcending their time.” He goes on to say that “the very nature of great works is that they outgrow what they were in the epoch of their creation” (Morson, Anna Karenina in our Time). They transcend their time by identifying human struggle and longing common to all times. Is there a God? Does he forgive me? Will He ever stop? Can others forgive me? Can I forgive? Is the course of my life due to my own choices or to fate? For more thoughts from Morson on Tolstoy’s novel see some old blog posts (here or here).
And while we are on the subject of works of literature transcending their time, let’s talk a minute about Les Miserables coming out on Christmas Day (watch the trailer). So, I’m just a wee bit excited about this one. Just today the Huffington Post released a mixed review of the movie (HERE). One critic called it “bombastic” saying, “As the enduring success of this property has shown, there are large, emotionally susceptible segments of the population ready to swallow this sort of thing, but that doesn't mean it's good.” I guess I’m part of the large emotionally susceptible segments of the population because I’m ready to swallow it up. From the minute Anne Hathaway’s voice belts out "On My Own" in today’s preview I have chills all over. Bring it on. A crystal clear voice rings out over the cinema, "I dreamed a dream of time gone by, when hope was high and life worth living. I dreamed that love would never die. I dreamed that God would be forgiving. But the tigers come at night with their voices soft as thunder..." 
I hope, my friends, you are enjoying the holiday season. Hopefully, this little blog is not dead but merely gasping for air. My writing joints are a bit rusty after a month away. I need Dorothy with her tin can to loosen me up. Maybe writing again here now and then will get the juices flowing again.
And I wish you happy movie going in this fun season of good movies old and new.
