If Knightley couldn't get a SAG nod for the much more praised Pride & Prejudice, I highly doubt she'll be nominated for Anna Karenina. I think BAFTA will likely snub her, as well.
If Knightley couldn't get a SAG nod for the much more praised Pride & Prejudice, I highly doubt she'll be nominated for Anna Karenina. I think BAFTA will likely snub her, as well.
I'm not disagreeing with you. But at the moment I do think she'll get a BAFTA nomination.Originally Posted by affy18
I agree that a SAG nod, and even a BAFTA is a difficult get for Keira this year. On her side is that this role is a showier, more skillful, more mature role than Elizabeth Bennet from P&P, and has more obvious 'awards bait' content such as adultery, teary melodrama, breakdowns, suicide etc.
yah SAG probably wont happen, but I think Bafta might scoop her up. I mean she did get unanimous praise over there which truly is a shocker! I think she has the brit block voting for her, cause well Hitchcock seems at the moment to be a bust, and nobody is really rallying behind Mirren. Marion Cotillard could steal that BAFTA spot from Keira, but Rust and Bone seems to have been DOA here in the States and nobody really is talking about Marion besides on these boards and fanboys. If anything, she still has a fighting shot. Her performance is good, and again she is the LEAD in her movie. And whether she makes it or not, Keira said it best when Atonement screened in Venice, and I think also can refer to this film..."If the awards come, great, if they dont its fine, it doesnt de-value the project."
Knightley should be a surefire thing at BAFTA except they seem to have it out for her unless her movie is like a huge favorite. Not even mentioning her on their shortlists when all her co-stars get noticed is kind of strange. And this role has also been compared to The Duchess by many critics so I'm not sure this is going to be new/exciting enough for them. I think she'll have to settle for a GG nod this time.
Keira will have to settle for her obligatory, star-fucking GG nomination
hardly 'obligatory', since GG passed on her for The Duchess, Never Let Me Go and A Dangerous Method, despite her co-stars being nominated on two of those occasions...
And she is by no means even guaranteed a Globe nom this year either, (what with Wallis, Chastain, Cotillard, Watts, Mirren, now Weisz as well....) although it is pretty likely...
But nice try.
That's true. But, I think she'll get nominated this year. It's a more high profile role. But, if she misses there I'll feel bad for her. Contrary to what you might think, I actually like Keira.
And she is by no means even guaranteed a Globe nom this year either, (what with Wallis, Chastain, Cotillard, Watts, Mirren, now Weisz as well....) although it is pretty likely...
But nice try.
Keiera doesn't care. She got to prance around in Dioresque gowns and beautiful jewels. Didn't have to hunt for Osama Bin Laden in dreary corduroys. Didn't have to sex up a paraplegic. Didn't have to live on herbal tea and pumpkin seeds for months and chop off her hair. Didn't have to get into bed with Alfred Hitchcock. She already won! Girls, bye! :wigsnatch:
There's a Best Actress thread for this kind of talk.
I will marshall all the forces of darkness to hound you to an assisted suicide - Peter Capaldi, In The Loop
I really wanted to like this, but i didn't, it was very shallow. I'll come back later with more thoughts.
And Keira has done so much better in the past.
[
Keira is basically banned from the thread, as she apparently has less of a shot than Kirsten Stewart, and non-contender talk is not tolerated!There's a Best Actress thread for this kind of talk
I know I've got a big ego, I really don't know why it's such a big deal, though.
I was incredibly excited to see this, so I hate to say that I left the theater feeling a little deflated (and exhausted!) after watching it this afternoon. Wright’s approach is far too technical and so far removed from the realities of human emotion that the enterprise is like a carefully plotted puppet show. His handling of Anna is bizarre, cruel, and contradictory; the final shot of her is just so undignified and tasteless, it really diminished, for me, a lot of the otherwise spectacular work on display.
Knightley does the best with what she is given, but this is not a perfect union of actress and role. Knightley seemed to be too casual, too lighthearted, to truly manifest the intense turmoil that Anna was going through. She is largely capable of drawing deep when true emotion is needed, but her approach here is inconsistent, like a light switch turning on and off, her emotions swaying from sedate to histrionic. It is a performance with some devastating highs (and, probably, by all accounts, worthy of a Best Actress nomination), but I did not leave the theater feeling like it as revelatory as I truly hoped it would be. (That ending, aside from contained the aforementioned parting shot, also shortchanges Anna’s character and Knightley’s performance by throwing in a few worthless codas focusing on minor and largely insignificant characters.)
To that end, the script is just not up-to-par for the type of high-level avant garde kind of high cinema piece this is trying to be. Wright’s camera may swoop and hover in all sorts of directions through his Technicolor stagescapes, but Stoppard’s script quickly grows wearisome due to its grinding nature and fractured narrative full of senseless transitions. (Or a frighteningly worse possibility, Stoppard turned in a great script that was subsequently ruined by Wright’s overbearing and lead-footed direction.) There are scenes that stand out as individual highlights – a scene involving a marriage proposal told through children’s blocks is remarkable for its delightful simplicity – but the collective whole is about as valuable as the tickertape of shredded letters that rain down on poor, cuckolded Karenin.
Of note, Law probably give the best (and most focused) performance of the entire cast; his Karenin carefully teeters between loving forgiveness and homicidal madness. The overcrowded (and young) minor cast does not quite get enough time to truly make an indelible impression on the audience, but at least no one manages to stink up the joint too much. Even Aaron Taylor-Johnson, much maligned on this website, manages to turn in a memorable Vronsky, embuing his young paramour with a brusque sexuality that is both marginally effective and representative of just how imperfect of a match he would have been for our tragically doomed-in-life-and-love Karenina.
The technical work is – shocker! – marvelous…but in service of what? Wright’s noisy, gaudy, tacky adaption is just a trifle – an entertainingly forgettable foray into a life that grows more difficult to take seriously each passing minute.
WE'RE GONNA FIGHT!
This weekend...one last chance to save Halle's career from complete oblivion. Oh, wait...
"...it's already done."
#THECALL.
I'd be stunned if Knightly is nominated for this at all, by BAFTA, Oscar. Really she lacked the depth and range for the role. Jude Law as the only actor who excelled in this.
I really liked this a lot. To start with a disclaimer: I haven't read the book. To be honest, I don't feel I have to, because for me adaptations don't have to be a slavish reproduction or even catch the gist of the previous work, but still: I haven't read it.
I do understand that there are people who will not like some aspects of the film, like the theatricality of some of the scenes. I thought the metaphor of aristocratic social life in tsarist Russia as life on a stage a very nice one, and I actually thought the use was very consistent. Scenes in full public (society) life are in the theater, scenes that are not totally private yet more intimate are in the wings (for instance, the early scene between Knightley and MacDonald; they are related, but still some social decorum has to be kept), and scenes that are completely private are removed from the theater. I also liked the juxtaposition of the turmoil in the romantic relationship set in high society, and its eventual doom, with the harmonious and idyllic relationship set in the countryside/farmland. There's always snow and ice in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but the sun is eternally shining on the farmers, and even when there is snow, it's of postcard beauty. I'm not sure if this is Tolstoy (again, I haven't read the book), but it's surely clear which society is preferred here. And sure, it is all a bit in your face, but this is heightened drama, so what did you expect?
I thought Wright directed the hell out of it, and just the sheer coordination of some of the scenes is worth a lot of praise. The cinematography was astounding. Framing and lighting were out of this world, so many striking images. The production design was glorious and sumptuous. And that score!
Where the film falters is in the central romance, because as already mentioned by many, there is a distinct lack of chemistry between Knightley and Johnston. She goes mad out of passion for her lover, but God knows why. I blame Johnston, mostly, because he simply cannot act. I thought the acting in general was fine, though nothing of real note (Jude Law was my favorite too), the only failures being Johnston and the woman with the weird lips. Of course, the central romance not completely working is a blow to the film, and it keeps me from declaring this a masterpiece, but there still was so much more to like here than not.
But it's easy to see why the film is divisive. I think a good comparison is Moulin Rouge!, a similar film, only without the songs and made by a much better director. There's nothing wrong with not liking it, but one has to admire the ambition and out-of-the-box thinking.
I will marshall all the forces of darkness to hound you to an assisted suicide - Peter Capaldi, In The Loop
In the book, Levin (played by Domhnall Gleeson in the film) is thought to be a proxy for Tolstoy, and many of Tolstoy's books make clear his views about the corrupt and decadent lives of the upper classes.
Thanks!
I will marshall all the forces of darkness to hound you to an assisted suicide - Peter Capaldi, In The Loop
This year's best movies have been about visually experiencing stories. That is usual for my tastes. However, a new wrinkle has been added with some films this year. We've received several excellent works that discard basic principles of moviemaking and give us something new, but not esoteric. Cloud Atlas eliminates the need for us to follow characters. Instead, through editing (and screenplay), we view the story through the connections between characters. The driving narrative in Anna Karenina is the simple emotional dichotomy of love and rationality. All aspects of the mise en scene is with that theme in mind. That makes condensing the massive novel much easier as moviegoers are given something that can actually be addressed in two hours and not two hundred. Putting almost all events on the stage or the auditorium where an audience persuades the characters to think rationally. Of course the only character who gets off the stage, in fact his own cottage mansion in the countryside, is Levin. He's the only character who has a full appreciation for love and is the only one willing to let go of rationality for love. Joe Wright really nailed it. Costumes of course were fantastic, but what set them apart was how they fit into the thematic approach of the movie. The score by Dario Marianelli is his best since Pride & Prejudice and by really going all out in some scenes, put me into the filmmaker's world.
After a few bad years we're finally getting a field worthy of ten nominees (I'm actually at 11 so far) and it's because filmmakers were very innovative this year. It's making going to the cinema even more fun than it already is.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
