Films used to be more like Anna Karenina than they are now. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), David Lynch’s Dune (1984), Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), Paddy Chayefsky’s Altered States (1980) — just to riff from the top of my head — were movies that were happy to entertain us but whose purpose was to delve into the human experience. Art, in other words. You’ll notice all the listed movies fall within a certain time span. Filmmakers dared then. As much as I love The Avengers and as entertaining as it is, it cannot be called Art in the way these other movies can. In a strange way, its box office alone tells us that Avengers isn’t Art. Art doesn’t make that much money! The Dark Knight Rises disappoints ultimately because it dips its toe into Art but doesn’t jump fully into the pool.

I have now condensed a completely separate post and its complexities into the above paragraph. Forgive me, but I wanted to make a quick point about Anna without, uh, spending time to defend it.  Anna is my goddess in this post and I must attend only to her. This is a visually lush, bold effort. I don’t see these kind of movies offered much now. Thank you for indulging me while I plant Anna in the garden of Artistic Films. We’ll toss in Terry Gilliam’s work (Time Bandits, 1981; Brazil, 1985), too. We now have a whole list of thinking-man’s movies that are wonderful to pull out every 5 years or so.

Art is not something you watch every annual holiday like you would Avengers, the comfort-watch equivalent of a big bowl of Kraft Macaroni ‘n’ Cheese. Yum.

Must watching Art be the equivalent of eating broccoli? Can the broccoli have some melted cheese globbed on top? To be less metaphorical: can an Art film conform to the Enneagram?

Since the Enneagram can apply to every story, the answer is obvious. Perhaps the question should be: Can an Artist conform to the Enneagram? Especially when one of those Artists is the master writer Tom Stoppard, author of the screenplays for Anna and . . . Brazil! Director Joe Wright, he of the charming Pride & Prejudice update, proves his Artistic chops with this movie, too.

And I am about to have the temerity — or is it the hubris? — to criticize these two.

Hold tight because this is about to become the most wonky movie review you’ve ever read.

Stoppard is known as a playwright. Theater is the land of the Three Act structure and Stoppard uses that tool in this script. With a movie this ambitious I highly recommend using it AND the Enneagram to corral such a beast. Let’s try to diagram the structure.

Actually, we have five parts. Whether Stoppard considered this a Five Act structure, or a Three Act with an opening and closing Chorus, I don’t know. Since the opening and closing are set up as perfect bookends, I will call them a Chorus. Here is my stab at Stoppard’s structure. I’ve highlighted certain patterns in blue, which I will explain after the read-through.

CHORUS

Establish the world as taking place on a stage. Open the curtain and fly the walls.

Show a stylized montage of letter reading. Anna learns that her brother Oblonsky has cheated on his wife Dolly.

Introduce Anna’s relationship with her husband Karenin.

Cut to a running toy train that, in this world, also represents a full-sized train.

ACT ONE

Levin, an earnest young lover, comes to seek Oblonsky’s help.

Levin proposes to his sweetheart, Kitty, who refuses him.

Vronsky, who will become Anna’s lover, is introduced.

Levin’s ill brother who keeps a mistress is introduced.

Anna and Vronsky see each other for the first time.

A workman falls under the train and is cut in half. (Effective. R-rating being earned here.)

Anna meets with Dolly and gives her a moral speech: “You can’t forgive [your cheating husband] so your lives must continue wretched.” (All quotes are my paraphrase.)

Levin travels from town into the country.

Kitty throws a party. She wants to dance with Vronsky but Anna monopolizes him. The dancing between the lovers-to-be is very stylized and very sensual. Anna’s behavior damages her relationship with Kitty; her indiscriminate dancing is her first step toward the social and moral ruin that is to come.

ACT TWO

Anna runs into Vronsky on the train.

Karenin and Anna engage in a stale conjugal visit.

Anna attends the opera, surrounded by a welcoming society.

Anna and Vronsky meet and resist each other.

Karenin gives a moral speech to Anna: “It is my duty to remind you . . .” of her position as a wife. He senses Vronsky’s effect.

Vronsky and Anna consummate their relationship. The scenes are very stylized and beautiful, but they still earn their R-rating.

We see Levin on his farm; We see Vronsky and Anna deeply in love; We see Anna’s son in a hedge maze.

Anna attends a horse race, cheering on Vronsky. The set is astonishingly stylized. Vronsky’s horse crashes and must be shot. Anna’s emotions lead her to make a spectacle of herself in society. She is damaged socially; Karenin has no illusions about her affair anymore; Vronsky’s horse, which is the only other thing he loves besides Anna, is destroyed when he must shoot it.

ACT THREE

Levin, in the country, sees Kitty ride by in a carriage. He is enchanted again.

Anna is pregnant with Vronsky’s child.

Levin returns to town.

He proposes again to Kitty and this time is accepted.

Anna, ill (and delivering the baby, I believe), seems near death and asks for Karenin’s forgiveness.

When Anna is well again she begs Karenin’s permission to see Vronsky.

Karenin delivers a moral speech: “It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.” Anna pushes at the issue. Without Vronsky she feels as if she “shot myself through the heart”.

Karenin, still embroiled in the above moment, places his face next to Anna’s foot and gives his consent.

Anna and Vronsky go South. A beautiful tableau of the two of them in a sunlit bed, Vronsky’s bare flank exposed, makes clear that their passion continues.

Levin, married to Kitty, brings her to his farmhouse. The socially unacceptable, ill brother is in the house. When Levin, mortified, explains to Kitty, she steps forward without question and ministers to the brother. She is such an angel at this moment that I began to cry.

Anna and Vronsky are back in town. Anna insists on going to the opera, even though she is warned against exposing herself. Her role as social pariah becomes clear to her by the way she’s treated there.

Anna begins a relationship with “La Morphine”. She is paranoid, delusional and unwell. Everything that she ever was is now destroyed and she knows it.

CHORUS

The train. Anna step into the wheels and her head is bounced and crushed. R-rating extravaganza here.

Levin and Kitty at the farm have a beautiful baby.

Oblonsky reacts stoically to the news of his sister Anna’s death.

Karenin sits in the middle of a field, happily, while his son by Anna and her bastard daughter (whom Karenin has claimed) play contentedly.

The camera pulls back to reveal the field is just part of the stage set. And that’s the end.

* * *

That’s basically the whole movie. I left out some scenes that, in my opinion, obviously didn’t belong within the structure and should have been cut.

Take a deep breath and hold on. Sorry, but we’re only halfway done.

Please note the amazing things Stoppard has done with these Three Acts. Each Act begins with Levin, proceeds with its business until a moral lesson must be delivered, and then shows Anna (or her surrogate, in the case of the horse) being socially, morally, psychologically or physically destroyed.

Also note that the Chorus sections are mirror versions of each other. Really, I find this so very beautiful. I must be some kind of secret math geek.

If you’ve noticed all this you will now be ready to see that Stoppard messed up his formula in one place. Levin travels to the country near the end of Act One, which should have been moved to the start of Act Two where it belonged. I see no story reason why this event is out of place.

If the answer is because Tolstoy wrote it that way, that’s not a good enough reason.

Taking the movie as it was produced, I will now show you where its Enneagram lies. This is a forensic process based on their film. Honestly. Their story made their Enneagram. I’m just the digger. After I’ve quickly detailed the Enneagram points I will overlay the two processes and we’ll see what the movie is really saying.

1

As the Chorus makes clear, the world is established as a stage set.

2

The trouble is the train. All I ever knew about Anna Karenina was that she threw herself in front of a train at the climax. With that well-known fact sitting fat and happy at the 8, the train that’s already placed directly after this movie’s 1 is a great 2. The train stuff is fudged up as filmed, so my formula would nudge events together. I’ll show you later.

3

Levin’s proposal, rejected here, is later accepted. Mirrors. Since the themes of this story are fidelity and forgiveness, this is a lovely 3.

4

Everything between the 3 and the consummation d’affaire Anna and Vronsky is the 4. Personally, and without knowing the author’s and director’s intentions, I would cut some content here. Tension surrounding the couple is important, but we know where they’re headed so get on with it. Also, the wonderfully underplayed performance by Jude Law as Karenin would shine stronger if some of the distractions were removed. The cast is uniformly grand, but Law is a cut above. A handsome, leading man actor has taken a worn, middle-aged role and owned it. Because we all know Law is underneath the thinned hairline and bushy beard we can believe that Anna was once in love with this man. Karenin’s moral certitude is mesmerizing.

SWITCH

Sex is the Switch, baby. Or, I should say, sex is the result of the Switch. First the couple is chaste, and then they’re fiendish. The Switch is like a literal switch has been thrown.

5

Momentum drops in the 5 as it’s assembled. In my formula I’d move some pieces around. Obviously, the couple is in love and happy for a while in the 5. It doesn’t last long, though. The horse race intervenes fairly quickly. These are good push-and-pulls. However, the movie has Levin’s second proposal way too early. Anna’s illness, childbirth and Karenin’s path to forgiveness are all 5 events. I would shift these back to their proper place in the order.

6

That 5 shift would place Levin’s accepted proposal, our 6, later in the film where it belongs according to the Enneagram. Levin and Kitty are the “good” couple. They are the moral backbone while Anna descends into hell. The story must hang off of Levin’s frame. If this 6 comes too early, as it currently does, the rhythm of the movie is out of whack. Think about it.

7

If Anna’s request to return to Vronsky is played here, directly after the proposal, the impact is stronger. The more Levin proceeds honorably, the more Anna slides into depravity. The moment when Karenin takes Anna’s foot and decides (ahem) to let her see Vronsky again is the fatal blow. How fascinating does that crisis make Karenin! He knows that to help Anna is sinful, yet he acquiesces anyway.

8

Before the leap into the train tracks, Anna must visit the opera and find herself rejected by everything she understands of life. This is an important motivation for the jump. Her last words are, “Forgive me.” To whom are they offered? My reading of the story is that she asks them of God. However, the film beautifully leaves that open to each viewer.

And here is where I’ll really be bold. I would move the Levin scene in which Kitty becomes an angel to this spot. It is a climax, too. It is the counterpoint. In a way, it is God’s answer to Anna that forgiveness is always possible. And it’s happy. Anna’s head bouncing under a train is not an image on which to linger.

9

The final Chorus lines up quite nicely at this point.

And thar she blows. I hope I don’t need to include a white board with this post. Well, I’ll try. I will copy/paste the Three Act structure with the Enneagram overlaid. See if you can find my version of the movie in it. Remember, though, I only go into such a crazed state because this movie, this work of Art, is worth the effort. All this OCD is my homage to a great film that missed its mark, in my very humble opinion.

Blue is the Three Act structure, red is for the Enneagram numbers and purple indicates my changes with “xxx” marking the event’s original location in the line-up.

Heh! Let’s all get a glass of wine before reading further!

 

CHORUS

1

Establish the world as taking place on a stage. Open the curtain and fly the walls.

Show a stylized montage of letter reading. Anna learns that her brother Oblonsky has cheated on his wife Dolly.

Introduce Anna’s relationship with her husband Karenin.

2

Cut to a running toy train that, in this world, also represents a full-sized train.

Anna and Vronsky see each other for the first time.

A workman falls under the train and is cut in half. (Effective. R-rating being earned here.)

ACT ONE

Levin, an earnest young lover, comes to seek Oblonsky’s help.

3

Levin proposes to his sweetheart, Kitty, who refuses him.

4

Vronsky, who will become Anna’s lover, is introduced.

Levin’s ill brother who keeps a mistress is introduced.

xxx

Anna meets with Dolly and gives her a moral speech: “You can’t forgive [your cheating husband] so your lives must continue wretched.” (All quotes are my paraphrase.)

xxx

Kitty’s party. She wants to dance with Vronsky but Anna monopolizes him. The dancing between the lovers-to-be is very stylized and very sensual. Anna’s behavior damages her relationship with Kitty; her indiscriminate dancing is her first step toward the social and moral ruin that is to come.

ACT TWO

Levin travels from town into the country.

Anna runs into Vronsky on the train.

Karenin and Anna engage in a stale conjugal visit.

Anna attends the opera, surrounded by society.

Anna and Vronsky meet and resist each other.

Karenin gives a moral speech to Anna: “It is my duty to remind you . . .” of her position as a wife. He senses Vronsky’s effect.

SWITCH

Vronsky and Anna consummate their relationship. The scenes are very stylized and beautiful, but they still earn their R-rating.

We see Levin on his farm; We see Vronsky and Anna deeply in love; We see Anna’s son in a hedge maze.

Anna attends a horse race, cheering on Vronsky. The set is astonishingly stylized. Vronsky’s horse crashes and must be shot. Anna’s emotions lead her to make a spectacle of herself in society. She is damaged socially; Karenin has no illusions about her affair anymore; Vronsky’s horse, which is the only other thing he loves besides Anna, is destroyed.

ACT THREE

Levin, in the country, sees Kitty ride by in a carriage. He is enchanted again.

Anna is pregnant with Vronsky’s child.

Anna, ill (and delivering the baby, I believe), seems near death and asks for Karenin’s forgiveness.

Levin returns to town.

6

He proposes again to Kitty and this time is accepted.

xxx

7

When Anna is well again she begs Karenin to see Vronsky.

Karenin delivers a moral speech: “It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.” Anna pushes at the issue. Without Vronsky she feels as if she “shot myself through the heart”.

Karenin, still embroiled in the above moment, places his face next to Anna’s foot and gives his consent.

Anna and Vronsky go South. A beautiful tableau of the two of them in a sunlit bed, Vronsky’s bare flank exposed, makes clear that their passion continues.

8

xxx

Anna and Vronsky are back in town. Anna insists on going to the opera, even though she is warned. Her role as social pariah becomes clear to her by the way she’s treated there.

Anna begins a relationship with “La Morphine”. She is paranoid, delusional and unwell. Everything that she ever was is now destroyed and she knows it.

CHORUS

Levin, married to Kitty, brings her to his farmhouse. The socially unacceptable, ill brother is in the house. When Levin, mortified, explains to Kitty, she steps forward without question and ministers to the brother. She is such an angel at this moment that I began to cry.

The train. Anna step into the wheels and her head is bounced and crushed. R-rating extravaganza here.

9

Levin and Kitty at the farm have a beautiful baby.

Oblonsky reacts stoically to the news of his sister Anna’s death.

Karenin sits in the middle of a field, happily, while his son by Anna and her bastard daughter (whom Karenin has claimed) play contentedly.

The camera pulls back to reveal the field is just part of the stage set. And that’s the end.

* * *

I’m not quite sure about that 8 order. Head games can only take you so far. Editor Melanie Oliver was given a monster-sized task and handled many cuts, particularly the blending of scene and set piece, very well. I bow to all in cast and crew.

Thanks for reading and join me next time when I rewrite Revenge of the Sith.

Just kidding.