ANASTASIA: Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox 1956) Twilight Time
“What is history but a fable agreed upon?” – Napoleon I
What is
Hollywood, but a dream remembered? The mores, mannerisms and machinations that
allowed director, Anatole Litvak the opportunity to create such a delectably
escapist confection as Anastasia
(1956) are long gone: ditto for the level of artistry required of such
virtuosi as Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes, not to mention the
film’s sublime supporting roster: a caustic Felix Aylmer, devious Akim Tamaroff
and ebullient Martita Hunt among them, doing what they did best. Anastasia could never be made today,
not the least for the futility in the exercise affected by the 2007
discovery of the bodies of Alexei and Anastasia – originally not among the
other Romanov remains unearth nearly two decades earlier. Their absence then
had been instrumental in perpetuating the hopeful wish fulfillment that perhaps
the youngest daughter and her brother had survived the deluge of 1917;
Anastasia, so it was rumored, perhaps living obscurely with the dashing young
Bolshevik who had taken pity on her in the last remaining moments before this
bloody coup and ushered her to safety via a daring back door escape into the
frigid night air. That Anastasia,
the movie, has endured, despite this revelation, and continues to cast its
spell as an alternative history is both a testament to the expertise in front
of and behind the camera, as well as to screenwriter, Arthur Laurents ability
to tamper with our innate communal desire to dream away reality, even in the
face of its unflattering verities. Does it matter the real Anastasia did not
survive? Only to the purest of cynics on whose shattered resolve the balance of
judgment never entirely falls. The daydreamers and their broken hearts remain
perennially ensconced in their fantastical belief, insidiously preyed upon by a
Hollywood dream factory with truly affecting glamor and superbly orchestrated melodrama.
The ill-fated
tale of the Romanov dynasty has been told and retold many times since the
Russian Revolution; perhaps because, like the perennial appeal of Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, our sentiments share a
common affinity for children of a slain father figure, recalling the pageantry
of a bygone era through rose-colored glasses; the majesty turned to dust; the remembrance,
forever sheathed in an incalculable air of mystery enveloping these
larger-than-life characters. The veracities about the last Romanov dynasty have
all been ruthlessly obscured, twisted and/or manipulated to suit alternative
theories of the crime of their murder – justifiable homicide, some would argue,
of a politically corrupt and archaic monarchy destined otherwise to rule the largest
nation on earth with an iron fist. Well, at least this is how the Communist
regime would have us remember them. In another famous film about the fall of
Russia, David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago
(1965), there is a poignant moment in which Ralph Richardson’s seemingly
resolute patriarch, withered by care and age, suddenly breaks down upon
learning the news of the Tsar and his family’s bloody assassination. “What’s it for?” he whimpers, to which a
more clairvoyant, if equally as sad-eyed Omar Sharif replies, “It’s to show there’s no going back.”
Yet, Anastasia endeavors to do exactly that;
return – with an absence of some years – to the scene of the crime and make
whole the last possible faith for restoring some semblance to the royalists
with an impossible revision of the truth. At one point in the film, Yul
Brynner’s Gen. Bougnine openly admits to his conspirators they are not
looking for the real Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna; only a reasonable
facsimile in place of the hopeful assurances for this decidedly dead and buried
past that will allow them access to the one hundred million pound inheritance
awaiting its rightful owner in the Bank of England. FYI – this king’s ransom is
still lying in wait inside a vault somewhere in Europe. But even in 1956, the
sands of time and hard-line communism had made it virtually impossible for
anyone to either confirm or deny the various fakes paraded before the Dowager
Empress in a vain attempt to gain her approval. Gradually, the yoke of silence lifted.
But there remained much still shrouded in secrecy and debate, ironically,
helping to perpetuate, rather than dispel our insatiable need to perennially
revisit this disturbingly dark chapter in a nation’s history.
Impressions of
Tsarist Russia since emerged from under the iron curtain, and, in the spirit of
former diplomat, Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, have been far
less judgmental than those painted by previous regimes devoted to its suppression:
Nicholas II, the last of the Imperial rulers, perceived as a more benevolent –
though equally as flawed - patriarch to his peoples; less the tyrant as he was
portrayed for generations by the anarchists in his own life time, and those who
followed in their footsteps for nearly half a century thereafter, devoted to
the obfuscation, nee bastardization, of his plutocracy. Yet, history and
hindsight have a bizarre way of intermingling to create a third romanticized
alternative to this reality already blurred. And lest we forget, time and
history confirm Lenin’s new order was as dire a consequence to the Russia as
most any Tsarist edict preceding it. Yet, even Stalin’s iron-fisted closed-door
policies could not prevent one rumor from proliferating throughout the
catacombs and antechambers of Europe. So intriguing remained the legend of
Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov, that almost from the moment news spread far and
wide of the Romanov assassination, pretenders to the throne from every walk of
life began to clamor for an audience with Nicholas’ mother; the exiled Grand
Duchess Maria Feodorovna, living in Copenhagen. In the beginning at least, the
dowager was desperate for news of her youngest grandchild, said to have escaped
the bullet-ridden deluge in that house of ‘special purpose’ in Yekaterinburg.
But her optimism quickly soured when these imposters, ill-conceived and much
too greedily anxious to acquire the sizable inheritance, created an absurd
fervor outside of Russia for all things Romanov. Their ambition would turn
Maria’s heart to stone.
One such ‘imposter’
was Anna Anderson: an emotionally fragile pauper who nevertheless bore a
striking physical resemblance to the real Anastasia, or rather, a reasonable facsimile
sufficiently aged. Anderson possessed uncanny knowledge of certain irrefutable
and very private facts about the royal household only those who believed in her
claim argued could not be known, except through privilege. As such, Anderson
was openly embraced and, in fact, financially supported by a sect of exiled
Russian loyalists; infrequently put on display as the highly disputed heir
apparent to the throne. Frequent bouts of mental illness and Anderson’s own
bizarre behaviors, also her refusal to make any claim to the money, eventually
caused even her most devout supporters to back away in disillusionment.
Anderson later married, to a doctor who fervently believed she was displaced
royalty, died obscurely with her heatedly contested identity still unconfirmed.
Decades later, DNA testing would put an official period to her story. Anderson
was not the missing link to this most tragic chapter, but yet another
enterprising fake. Alas, this revelation did not prevent Hollywood from
exploiting the legend of Anastasia. Indeed, virtually all movie incarnations
since have very little to do with the Romanov’s all too perishable truth, perhaps
because historians remain divided as to what actually became of the youngest
Grand Duchess after this bloody coup. Since then, the rumor, the legend and the
mystery surrounding Anastasia has been immortalized as everything from a
Broadway smash to an Oscar-winning film and animated musical: variations on a
theme - the fairy tale that became a nightmare, and, most affectingly
romanticized all out of proportion.
In
re-conceptualizing Anastasia’s life as high art, director Anatole Litvak’s 1956
melodrama eschews all but the slenderest of facts; the movie’s Cinderella-esque
transformation, as intoxicating and irresistible, designed to cultivate and perpetuate
the myth of Anastasia herself, and no less startling, perhaps, for its
restoration of one of Hollywood’s ousted movie queens. For two decades, Ingrid
Bergman had been a luminous star. From her auspicious American debut in a
remake of the Swedish tearjerker, Intermezzo
(1939) for producer, David O. Selznick (who owned and thoroughly exploited her
American contract) to her star-making performances in Casablanca (1942), Gaslight (1944),
Spellbound, The Bells of St. Mary’s (both in 1945) and Notorious (1946), Bergman’s ascendancy as one of movie land’s elite
had been swift and assured. But then, in 1947, came the scandal to rock her
house of cards to its very foundation; the rumored affair with Italian
director, Roberto Rossellini, eventually exposed as fact rather than fiction.
This, indeed, was an affair to remember; one that, in hindsight, Bergman – and
perhaps Selznick – would have preferred to forget. Only it was too late.
Bergman’s reputation was pilloried in the press and excoriated on the floor of
the U.S. senate. She retreated with her lover to Rome where the couple married
and strived to begin their lives and careers anew. Although each continued to
make movies in the foreign market for almost ten years thereafter, none was
successful at maintaining or even reinventing Bergman’s stardom abroad or at
home. Eventually, the marriage came to a semi-tragic finale; Rossellini, once
considered Italy’s preeminent neo-realist, now with his directorial career in
tatters, and Bergman, disillusioned, quite alone, practically broke, and,
seemingly unloved and unworthy of the public’s affections.
Director,
Anatole Litvak was undeterred by the open hostility toward Bergman. In point of
fact, it had abated by the time playwright, Arthur Laurents was given the plum
assignment of adapting Marcelle Maurette/Guy Bolton’s stagecraft for the
Cinemascope screen. During this interim, Bergman had returned to America,
somewhat chaste rather than chased away, made infinitely sadder though wiser by
her experiences abroad. True enough, Spiros P. Skouris, then head of 2oth
Century-Fox, did not want to hire her. But Litvak, along with Laurents
persisted, expressly pursuing Anastasia with
Bergman in mind. Thus, a package deal was very reluctantly agreed upon with
Laurents essentially going back to the drawing board for a full rewrite of the
stagecraft. From the outset, everything about Anastasia (1956) seemed kismet; Fox’s resident composer, Alfred
Newman contributing one of the most melodic and heartfelt of his 200+ film scores;
Jack Hildyard’s moodily lit cinematography providing a superb and seamless
complement to both the location work and studio-bound process mattes. A word about Newman is decidedly in order.
What can one say about a towering figure like Alfred Newman without gushing; 9
Academy Awards to his credit and a whopping 45 nominations – the third most-honored
individual in Oscar history, trailing only Walt Disney and fellow composer,
John Williams. Newman’s score for Anastasia
is perfection itself, throbbing with the formidable pang of this vanquished
dream unwilling to die. He punctuates the film’s superb acting with trademarked
and iconic blasts of genius, miraculously, never to gild this lily, but rather,
provide fertile soil in which such a rare flower as this can thrive.
Anastasia’s hit or miss with audiences squarely rests on
Bergman’s broad Swedish shoulders. In delving deeply into her inner demons she,
perhaps better than any other actress of her generation, implicitly understands
the plight of this exploitable creature; the amnesiac of no fixed origin who
could easily be manipulated – nee molded – into the embodiment of a long-dead
and buried dream for the aristocracy, sprung miraculously back to life as a
myth in her own time. In retrospect, only Bergman could have pulled off the
coup; radiant, if slightly too old for the part; her ageless beauty and
overwhelming acting chops easily eclipsing this shortcoming. If Bergman seemed
like ideal casting, then Litvak made an even most fortuitous decision to costar
Yul Brynner; of Russian extraction, to play the part of an embittered
ex-patriot with a hidden agenda. With his distinctive bald pate, high cheek
bones and inimitable, yet un-quantifiable accent, Brynner is utterly charismatic
as General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine; twice condemned to be assassinated by both
the Reds and the Whites. “Good for them,”
an impatient Dowager sarcastically declares, and, indeed, very good for the
picture. In his rich and indubitably varied career, Brynner had already, by
1956, conquered stage and screen before becoming an accomplished television
director. He might have gone on with it, if not for the public’s insatiable
appetite for his unique sex appeal. It was a banner year for Brynner in the
movies, reprising his legendary stagecraft as the gregariously lovable Siamese
dictator in 2oth Century-Fox’s film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I and, even more recently,
appearing as the muscly Egyptian potentate, Ramses II in Cecil B. DeMille’s
gargantuan The Ten Commandments (both
released in 1956). For many, Brynner’s performance in Anastasia anchors and legitimizes it as a very Russian-based fairy
tale, given ballast by his commanding presence.
Better still,
the flint of romantic chemistry between Bergman and Brynner is palpably
electric; his piercing eyes and authoritative vocalization, forces to be
reckoned with and readily tested by this burgeoning princess-in-the-making. Brynner’s
Bounine makes relentless demands on the amnesiac, played with an almost magical
perplexity by Bergman: half-assured/half-terrorized, the flesh and blood
evocation of that long-abandoned grandeur once exalted from on high as Imperial
Russia. The genius in Arthur Laurents’ rewrite is it effectively toys with the
audience’s insatiable need to be satisfied by their own wish fulfillment for
the proverbial happy ending. The ending we inevitably get is neither pluperfect
in its adherence to the time-honored precepts of the traditional fairytale, nor
is it as somberly an abomination of all that has gone before it; rather, an
elegant tightrope straddling two seemingly irreconcilable points of reference,
battling over a very convoluted historical continuum. Laurents’ prose and
Bergman’s delivery of these stately and clever lines of dialogue keep us
guessing. We are never entirely certain if the memories being extolled by
Bounine’s protégé are tinny, faint remembrances stirred by the genuine article
or simply the well-orchestrated recitations of a puppet whose master continues
to pull the strings. Perhaps because of
this, the sublime romanticism of the piece is neither proven nor dispelled, but
allowed to exist in a curious purgatory from which the audience alone must
decide for themselves.
The other
pivotal performance in the movie yet to be discussed herein is given by ‘First Lady of the American Theater’
Helen Hayes; a virtuosic Dowager Empress, impassioned by life, yet jaded
through time; the resolute proprietress of this ancient world, fleetingly brought
forth from her moldering past through the sheer will of this mysterious and
determined stranger. Hayes’ performance is really at the crux of the film’s
third act; her reconciliation with the many phantoms from her past presented
with nervous tearfulness and a frenetic energy swelling into unshakable faith
as she commands her perpetually cheery, though rather scatterbrained,
lady-in-waiting, Baroness Elena von Livenbaum (the exuberant Martita Hunt) to
bring out the jesters for one last hurrah.
When Livenbaum is first reunited with Bounine she cannot contain her
flirtations, an air of giddy and irrepressibly school-girlish infatuation
bursting forth that the Empress finds grotesquely sentimental. “Livenbaum, your voluptuous fancies are
disgusting,” Hayes’ grand dame reiterates with equal portions of disdain
and sardonic wit, “To a woman of your
years, sex should mean nothing but gender!”
But, of
course, desire – rich and full-blooded – remains at the heart of our story;
perversely so as it is begun by Bounine’s Svengali-esque obsession to
completely manipulate his amnesia-ridden charge to better suit his purposes.
Before long, however, this balance of power has shifted; defiantly and
increasingly rejected by the willful Ann, who seems to recount details of a
former life untaught by her master. As this woman of no past begins to acquire
more than just a tenuous toehold on the present, future exploitations by
Bounine are doomed to failure. The initial tenacity of their agreed upon
venture - to secure the real Anastasia’s inheritance and thereby make Bounine
and his cohorts, Piotr Ivanovich Petrovin (Sacha Pitoeff) and Boris Adreivich
Chernov (Akim Tamiroff) very rich men – is supplanted by a far more intuitive
and primal urge now; Bounine’s part to possess Anna body and soul. Torn in his
lust, he is determined to leave the presentation ceremony before the spectacle
is officially acknowledged by the Dowager – a move likely to lead to an even
more anticlimactic and bittersweet announcement – Anna’s engagement to the
enterprising Prince Paul von Haraldberg (Ivan Desny). Instead, Bounine elects
to bid the Dowager Empress a hasty farewell. “You speak of duty to me?” she suggests, having already surmised
the reason for his hasty exit. Yet, this is not the Dowager as first introduced
to us, rigid and glacially cool who, after an absence of some years, is
reacquainted with the man she would have preferred to have faced his own firing
squad. Anna has softened her heart, the Dowager harboring no bitterness for
this betrayal; even amused, perhaps, to witness the con having become ensnared
in a trap of his own design. For a brief moment Bounine too is transformed.
Gone is the glowering, if courtly, usurper; the devious plotter only interested
in the money, now revealed to us as having locked away a genuine, if equally as
wounded heart for far too many years. Interestingly, only in the Dowager’s
presence can he allow honesty to supersede his usual counterbalances of austerity
and a schemer’s slick charm, a weary smile pervading as he sincerely confesses, “When I am in Your Majesty’s presence I am
deeply aware of it.”
Pressed by
royal command to answer her inquiry regarding love, Bounine goes one step
further in his confession, “What has
always been easy for others has always been difficult for me.” It now becomes clear to the Dowager she must
act as the catalyst for their reunion. Yet, even in this precursor to some
grand amour between Bounine and Anastasia (that we never get to see, but are
made to presume has occurred behind locked doors), the Dowager refuses to entirely
surrender her whimsy. “The others were
right,” a disillusioned Prince Paul murmurs after discovering Bounine and
Anna have run off together, “She was not
Anastasia after all.” “Wasn’t she?” the Dowager contemplates, as even she
has become uncertain about the truth. A fascinating transference has occurred.
Paul, never a man of faith is unwilling to contemplate any alternative except
one: he has been duped by an imposter. Alas, the Dowager is more circumspect.
For the woman who begged for her understanding, resurrecting the phantoms of
the past so vividly, she could almost believe in miracles, has nevertheless
renewed the Dowager’s faith in humanity – a quality perhaps even she had almost
forgotten she possessed. Adopting the glacial façade of a regal monarch,
untouched by such shameless sentiment, the Dowager is, alas, the hardened cynic
no more. “What will you say to them, Aunt Marie?” Paul asks with stricken
bewilderment. “I will say the play is
over,” the Dowager unflinchingly admits,
“…go home.”
This last line
was intended by Arthur Laurents to have double-meaning; at once serving as a
curt reply to Paul’s query, but also made as a direct address into the camera,
in effect drawing the audience out of the movie’s tableau; the inference, that
what we have been watching until this moment has all been – as Bounine astutely
put it - ‘a play replaced by a pantomime’. Director, Anatole Litvak balked at this
finale, electing instead for the more traditional conclusion; Hayes turning to
Paul before the camera reveals the pair descending a grand staircase into the
glittering ballroom as courtiers anxiously await Anastasia’s never-to-be formal
debut. Laurents’ prose fit so neatly as pantomime or irrefutable fact that
logic and reality is effortlessly set aside for another inventive trip to this
wishing well. The truth, regrettably, is far grimmer and undeserving of these woolgathers.
In life, Anna Anderson would never gain the Dowager’s approval; nor any such
pretender endeavoring an audience. Maria Feodorovna’s death in 1928 put a
definite period to whatever slim chance at reconciliation remained.
Uncannily, the
whimsy of a Russian princess living obscurely abroad refused to perish and
would periodically be revived, particularly after 1991, when Anastasia’s bones
were not unearthed among the newly exhumed remains of the Russian Royals
discovered in an unmarked grave near the house of special purpose. In 2007, more bones were unearthed, this time
not far from the original excavation site. But DNA testing of these skeletal
remains proved inconclusive at best. Although some of the bones were typed as
irrefutably belonging to a child of Anastasia’s years, too much time had passed
to unequivocally provide an exact match to the long-lost princess. So, did
Anastasia escape the fate of her family? As with all truly epic tragedies
revisited in ‘what if?’ scenarios, it
becomes all too easy to succumb to a belief in miracles – however dubious their
source. But Anatole Litvak’s Anastasia at
least entertains us within this realm of possibility, if only for a few hours. Did
the girl survive? Well, it is the
rumor, the legend and the mystery.
Our story
opens on Russian Orthodox Easter, a processional in Paris ten years after the Revolution.
A thin wisp of a creature is observed by a Russian expatriate, Stepan (Gregoire
Gromoff) near the exterior of the Russian Orthodox Church. A car is sent for
Gen. Bounine (Yul Brynner) who arrives to inspect the woman, so we are told,
has given her name to a nurse in an asylum as Anna Koreff (Ingrid Bergman).
Bounine addresses the mystery woman by this name. But she is easily startled
and hurries away into the night, attempting suicide on the bank of the Seine. Rescued
by Bounine and Stepan, she is brought back to the basement beneath Bounine’s Russian-themed
café; introduced to his two partners in crime; Piotr Ivanovich Petrovin (Sacha
Pitoeff) and Boris Adreivich Chernov (Akim Tamiroff). Boris urges Bounine to be
realistic. It seems the Committee of Russian expatriates who have funded
Bounine’s exploits thus far have finally put their foot down, demanding he
produce the Grand Duchess within seven days or else face going to prison for
fraud.
Bounine
proposes what seems impossible: take this emaciated, frightened and wholly
unsuitable ex-mental patient and transform her into the long-lost Grand Duchess
Anastasia. Anna resists, but is brought to fitful cries by Bounine’s promise to
help her regain her memory. To this end, Anna endures his endless critiques and
criticisms; scrutinizing her every gesture; constantly drilled in historical
details and the social graces to fill in the gaps of her obscured past. At the
end of a week’s tutelage, Bounine presents an enfeebled and bedridden Anna to a
select group of six from the committee, as he so glibly reasons to Chernov, “Three stupid enough to accept even you as
Anastasia…three intelligent enough to spread the word that she is Anastasia!”
Bounine has commanded Anna to feign illness and remain silent throughout this
first meeting. Instead, Anna is impulsively drawn to a portly woman from the
committee whom she correctly identifies as one of her mother’s former ladies in
waiting. Unimpressed by this recognition at first, the woman’s cynicism is
disturbed by Anna’s reminiscences. Anna tells a more intimate story about the
ladies in waiting who wore lip rouge against the Tsarina’s wishes. With
impromptu sincerity, Anna suddenly calls to the woman by a nickname - ‘Ninnie’
- known only to the Tsarina’s inner circle. Ninnie is reduced to tears, declaring
“Your Imperial highness!”
This scene
marks Bergman’s first triumph in the film – spectacularly understated as she
wistfully reclines under a ratty mackinaw, the epitome of a little girl lost
now inhabiting this womanly form, innocently to resurrect an untaught reminiscence
from the darkened recesses of her perplexed mind; serene and seemingly unaware
of the impact it will have. Herein,
Bergman is a revelation; exquisite, almost Christ-like in her rapture as she quells
Ninnie’s disbelief, her gentleness perfectly complimented by Alfred Newman’s
quiet strings echoing the Anastasia
theme. The first hurdle overcome,
Bounine now endeavors to will Anna into a reasonable facsimile of the real
McCoy, steadily growing uncertain of the prospect that maybe – just maybe – he
has found not only the right actress to play the part, but the real woman in
question. “I know who you are not!” Bounine
impatiently tells Anna. Though by now, even he is not entirely certain. After
some consternation, and days more drilling, another elaborate ruse is planned
on a broader cross section of Russian emigres assembled at the home of the empathetic,
though flighty, Irina Lissemskaia (Natalie Schafer). Bounine sets the tone for their assembly
thus: “As you all know I am the last one to
believe in either miracles or resurrections…but reality cannot be established
without help – legal help; witness and signed statements…now, I am quite sure
that some of you have come here to obstruct; the reasons, political, monetary,
we all know. There are some who have been made understandably cynical by the
revolution. And there are some, who will testify to anyone and anything and
have. To none of you do we bring any pressure. To all of you we bring someone
who has literally suffered ‘worse than death’ for ten lost years. It is our
duty to restore this extraordinary person to the world of the living. If you are sentimental, say it is because she
has suffered enough. If you are humane, say justice must be done. If you are
Russian, the loyal subject of his late Majesty, then say it with me…our only
hope is his daughter.”
Alas, all does
not go according to plan. Bounine’s attempts to reintroduce the Countess
Baranova (Olga Valéry) to Anna are haughtily dismissed when Anna identifies the
Countess as a perverse social climber who long ago made a fool of her late
Uncle Alex. “My mother never liked you,
my father never liked you and I don’t like you – please go!”, leaving
Bounine chagrined. “You are mad,” he
whispers into her ear. Next, Bounine brings over the Tsar’s ex-Chamberlain, Ivan Vasilievich (Felix Aylmer) who is suffering from a deplorable
attack of gout. Jaded, he nevertheless is mostly impressed with ‘the performance’ but quietly dispels the
likelihood Anna and Anastasia are one in the same. “There are many characteristics and details you could recall, but so
could others,” Vasilievich points out,
“My relations with his Majesty’s children were impersonal. So, in the end, my
judgement could only be determined by opinion and that opinion judged solely on
resemblance. I’ve already noted the resemblance…and you’ve given me pleasure.
You’ve taken me back to my seat at the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg. But
the purpose of acting is not to appear to imitate reality…rather, to create the
illusion. I am not being sarcastic when I say you are an excellent
actress…extremely well trained.” Herein, witness Bergman’s second finest
moment in the picture; fragile, her eyes moist as she pleads “My life is troubling me”; wounded to
the core when Vasilievich goes even further to suggest she lacks the ‘manner’
of a royal princess – even one gesture in her deportment, worth more than any
amount of memorizations she could undoubtedly recite. It seems a lost cause,
the old curmudgeon turning to go. However, when Anna curtly admonishes Boris,
standing nearby and preparing to light a cigarette in her presence, the Chamberlain
is stricken by his own steely-eyed reminiscences of the past; Aylmer, matching
Bergman’s peerless perfection measure for measure, as he quietly turns to
inquire with haunted emphasis, “Who are
you?”
Unable to
attain the prerequisite of signatures necessary to authenticate Anna’s
identity, Bounine decides to take his case directly to the Dowager Empress
(Helen Hayes) who has been living in isolation in Copenhagen since the Revolution.
To this end, Bounine will rely on the enduring infatuations of the Empress’
lady-in-waiting, Baroness von Lievenbaum (the infectiously exuberant Martita
Hunt). The two share a secret rendezvous at Tivoli Gardens where Lievenbaum
confesses the dowager will see no one. Undaunted, Bounine, Boris, Piotr and
Anna attend a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Ballet. During its
intermission Bounine finagles an introduction between Anna and Prince Paul
(Ivan Desny); something of a useless playboy.
Paul is marginally apprehensive, believing he has been tricked into this
arranged public audience simply to act as a go-between Anna and the Dowager
Empress. In point of fact, he has. But Anna is most convincing, regaling her
former teenage suitor with fond memories from their past; reminding him that as
children they were once platonic sweethearts, presumably betrothed to each
other.
In the
meantime, Bounine forces an audience with the Dowager in her opera box. “Your Majesty, forgive me…” he begins. “I did once when I heard you’d been shot,”
Maria glibly replies. “I was sentenced
twice,” Bounine admits. “By whom? The
Whites or the Reds?” “As I recall, by both,” Bounine confesses. “Good for them!” Bougine presses onward, asking for the
Dowager’s pardon. But the mood turns sour as she inquires, “For what? This intrusion? For the effrontery of using the name Romanov
to launch a commercial enterprise? For hammering at my gate for days? Bounine,
I have already been shown two Tatianas, an Alexie and a Maria, as well as an
Anastasia. I will not see your client. I am as weary of these fake
grandchildren as I am of false hope. I have lost everything I have loved: my
husband, my family, my position, my country. I have nothing but memories. I
want to be left alone with them. You know perfectly well this woman is not my
granddaughter.” Bounine is cast out from
her presence with the greatest of disdain. But afterward, the Dowager uses her
opera spectacles to spy on the ‘imposter occupying the box directly opposite
hers in the theater. Is she worth a second glance, more than an oddity, a
curiosity or a dream remembered? Who can say? Meanwhile, Paul, having become
quite smitten with Anna, pursues her without any genuine intention to buy into
her story, getting Anna drunk in the hopes she will reveal to him her true
identity or at least the magnitude of Bounine’s grand plan.
Alas, Anna
remains true to herself. Intoxicated or sober, she cannot betray a confidence.
Believing her to be true – at least in spirit – Paul tries to soften the
Dowager’s heart. He is unsuccessful in these efforts. Later, however, the
Dowager makes her own inquiries with an impromptu visit to Anna’s room. Still,
she refuses to take Anna at face value, glibly commenting “The firing squads were such poor shots it is amazing the Revolution
succeeded.” In what remains Anastasia’s
crowning moment, Ingrid Bergman and Helen Hayes spar; at one point, the Dowager
cruelly admonishes Anna with the singular word capable of cutting like a knife
deep into her heart - “Imposter!” But
then comes ‘the irrefutably great moment of mutual realization and acceptance –
alas, not culled from history, but rather a culmination of Arthur Laurents’
superb craftsmanship as a skilled writer of melodrama, Bergman’s exquisite
vulnerability and Hayes’ infinite wisdom to find the heart, as well as the
soul, lurking within this monument to the aristocratic past. Anna begins to
nervously cough, something only the real Anastasia would have done under
similar circumstances. Moved by this outwardly unrehearsed and spontaneous reaction,
the Dowager is awakened from her cynicism, comforting the woman she now
fervently believes is her granddaughter. “The
phantoms can go away,” Maria tearfully declares, “You know, I have a footman. Oh, he’s a very old man…and each night he
goes from one room to the other, lighting the empty lamps until the great dark
rooms are a blaze of light. And that is true of all of us. We are lighting dead
lamps to illuminate a past that is dead and gone. I thought you were gone but
you have come back, Anastasia.” It is a scene with few equals in fifties
dramatic cinema, capped by the audience’s understanding of just how deep and
sublime the Dowager’s sacrifice is, an even more desperate realization, as
Hayes, clutching a whimpering Bergman, whispers with almost paralytic
reticence, “But oh please, if it should
not be you, don’t ever tell me.”
Everything
else that occurs after this penultimate acceptance is mere icing on an already
well frosted cake; Arthur Laurents knowing exactly how far to continue with the
‘is she or isn’t she?’ scenario; the
focus turned inward on the usurper; Bounine, suddenly protective of his charge and
unable to shake himself of his flawed affections, unexpectedly blossomed into
genuine love. A grand party is planned in the hotel ballroom to herald
Anastasia’s return into the aristocracy. However, at a press conference held
only hours before the presentation ceremony a man, Mikhail Vlados
(Karel Stepanek) challenges Anna’s claim that the
wounds sustained on her hands came not from frantic attempts made to shield herself
from the ricochet of bullets but from an explosion aboard a railway car in
Bucharest. How does he know this? Because he was there, and also present when
Anna was brought into the asylum stark-raving mad. Fearful the papers will
exploit this story and thus ruin Anna’s claim to the throne, Bounine elects to
perform his own vanishing act before the actual ceremony can commence. Alas, he
is torn by his unexpected romantic feelings. Confronting the Dowager with his premature
goodbyes, she instead commands him to wait for her return in an adjacent
lounge; then, quietly instructs Lievenbaum to fetch Anastasia in her stead –
certain the two are destined to become lovers. Moments later, Piotr arrives
frantic with the news Bounine and Anna have both gone. A disillusioned Paul
believes this proves Anna was not really Anastasia. But the dowager remains
optimistic. The girl, whoever she was, belongs to her heart, at least, for now.
Anastasia is a glowing example of what the full backing of a
major studio like Fox could achieve in its day. In point of fact, Litvak is
working with extraordinary talents both in front of and behind the camera;
evident in the impeccable panache and artistry on display in ever last frame. Bergman
would justly earn her second Academy Award for this role; the industry’s official
concession to assert ‘all had been forgiven’. Litvak’s direction keeps the pace
of this fable light and airy. It is, after all, a cinematic soufflé; intensely
sentimental to a fault though undeniably heartfelt from first frame to last. If
ever a fairy-tale existed outside the Walt Disney stables, and one made
exclusively for adults, then Anastasia is
it; a cleverly concocted fiction as rife with the enchantment of royal
intrigues as the unerring escapist allure of pure make-believe brought vividly
to life. What else can one say about such a divine and ethereal concoction
except that in the years since its release there have been too few opportunities
for audiences to wallow in such caprice; an oversight immeasurably rectified
whenever Anastasia is
re-screened.
Anastasia makes its long overdue debut in hi-def via a limited
edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time. Alas, it is an imperfect effort.
Mercifully, the image is not marred by Fox’s fundamentally flawed color
balancing that has oft’ plagued Cinemascope/DeLuxe color releases by bathing
them in shades of robin egg blue and/or teal. Color balancing is not the issue
here; particularly as flesh tones look especially fine and grays retain their
steel and concrete allure instead of adopting a bluish tint. So far so good.
But on the whole the color palette is decidedly anemic and, at times, downright
washed out. The other concern is contrast - weaker than anticipated and
compounding the overall lackluster visual presentation. Watching Anastasia in a completely darkened room
will likely satisfy the casual viewer. But turn on the lights and the image is
marred by inferior sharpness in a handful of scenes and a very ruddy complexion
that favors a sort of golden/almost sepia tint. Finally, there is some water
damage afflicting the Fox logo and Cinemascope credits that open the picture
and a horrendous tear that flashes across the screen moments before the end
titles. Honestly, if a full blown restoration was out of the question, could
not a more pristine rendering of at least Fox’s introductory and iconic fanfare
have been reinserted from another remaster already having undergone clean-up?
We also have a disturbing amount of gate weave, resulting in some distracting image
wobble and instability during the scenes where Bounine is training Anna in the
ways of court decorum. Slight edge effects also persist leading me to conclude
this image harvest is at least a decade old. It does, in fact, mimic the
shortcomings inherent on the old Studio Series DVD release from 2001 and such a
shame none of this was corrected, since digital technologies now might have
provided a more stable viewing experience.
Twilight Time
provides us with 3 audio options: a 5.1 DTS remaster, an approximation of the
original 4.0 Cinemascope/Westrex mix and a 2.0 stereo. The 5.1 DTS and 4.0 suffer from an unnatural
rechanneling; the original directionalized ‘stereo’ following actors across the
screen sounds very unnatural, as though, at intervals, the actors are standing
too close to the microphones. Of all the audio options, the 2.0 is the least
obtrusive – albeit, with a decided lack of spatiality. TT also gives us the
isolated score option – a chance at long last to listen to Alfred Newman’s
original music cues in lush stereo: the complete film score a glorious
experience, truncated on previous album and CD incarnations of the soundtrack
that combined or entirely omitted pivotal cues. Best of all, in addition to the
original and insightful DVD audio commentary from noted film historian and
author, Sylvia Stothard and screenwriter, Arthur Laurents, we get a brand new
secondary commentary featuring TT’s own Julie Kirgo and historian, David Del
Valle. This exclusively recorded commentary is a revelation, informative in its
own right without copying the Laurents/Stothard reflections. Finally, and
regrettably, we lose the A&E Biography Special on the real Anastasia that
accompanied the DVD. I am not entirely certain why Fox hi-def releases continue
to drop these informative specials from their Blu-ray reissues, though I
suspect it has something to do with their inability to be properly up-converted
to a 1080p signal. Personally, I would have settled to have it in 720i. Bottom
line: I sincerely wanted to love this disc because I adore the movie. Compared
to the careworn DVD, the Blu-ray is decidedly a step up. Unfortunately, it is
not perfect or anywhere near the benchmark of quality Blu-ray is readily
capable of delivering. Fox has not gone back to the drawing board on this one
and it shows – on occasion – painfully so. Recommended (because I adore this
movie) but with caveats already mentioned. Regrets!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
3
EXTRAS
3
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