Of course they are all going to be female, and I could really only pick 5 before it became redundant. I know that one of them is a TV movie character, but still. Also, 2 are based on actual people but honestly I don't give a shit. Also I had to choose from contemporary films because it's just a bit weird to say that I relate to Liv Ullman from Persona or Gena Rowlands from Woman Under the Influence (which I do, but both of those concepts are dated and I wanted something that would also be relatable to my readers. You're welcome :)
Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams) in Julie and Julia (2008). On the cusp of 30 and terrified about it, working as a mid-level nobody in a cubicle with nothing to show for her last 29 years except a tiny kitchen apartment in Queens and a loving orange cat, this New Yorker at a crossroads who was such an admired writer in college only no more, decides to change her life by cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, not devoid of regular meltdowns and panic attacks. In the end, changing her life. As she says in the film 'I was drowning and Julia pulled me out of the ocean.' To which her husband quips; 'Don't get carried away.' Yet another problem I have. Also the obvious parallel that we're both bloggers, if you missed that you're really thick.
Susannah Kaysen (played by Winona Ryder) in Girl, Interrupted (1999). The chain smoking, sarcastic before sarcasm was a thing, Susannah just doesn't seem like she belongs anywhere or cares about anything, but it's actually the opposite. She probably cares too much and her heart is too big for normal people, all the while her biggest life goal is 'not to end up like her mother' (no offense mom). She sees life as a giant version of the myth of Sisyphus and herself as the one cursed to roll a boulder up a hill only to see it fall down again and repeat for all eternity, and no where else does life feel like that than in LA. Another writer too.
Harper Pitt (played by Mary-Louise Parker) in Angels in America (2003). The borderline insane wife of a closeted law clerk, Harper constantly seeks life elsewhere...in her mind with the help of copious amounts of valium in 'wee fistfulls'. Not to say I'm a pill popper, but I am a notorious day dreamer, where my fantasy life is far more interesting than my life at hand. I don't have a 'Mr. Lies' (played by Jeffrey Wright) to fly me around to Antarctica, but I'm in constant limbo between the banality of my ordinary life, and the spectacularity of my fantasty life.
Jasmine (played by Cate Blanchett) in Blue Jasmine (2013). Who didn't relate to Jasmine? I mean that's why she won the Oscar isn't it. We all have a bit of Jasmine in us, in that we may snap at any moment because we as women are delicate beings and if one doesn't handle with care, we can self destruct if all we've done is put our faith in others rather than ourselves to take care of us. Jasmine is devastatingly flawed. The only thing being more devastating is that she doesn't lose hope until the very very end, and even then perhaps not, that she can reinvent herself and change her life for the better despite the cards she's been dealt. The ending shows you that continuing to have hope even in the face of the most hopeless of circumstances is the craziest thing a woman could do.
Kirsten Dunst as Justine in Melancholia (2011). It's very simple really, though Justine doesn't say much, her actions explain everything about what kind of woman she is, whether it is bathing nude in the blinding light of melancholia or laying motionless face up in a river, Justine is a rare breed of human. She is uncomfortable in fact traumatized by otherwise happy events like her own wedding, and can't stand being near anyone who seems to antagonize her. But in the face of a literal apocalypse she is able to be the source of comfort and unwavering strength to anyone who needs her. In an actual disaster, she would be the bastion of strength because she's aware that there's nothing left but that to do.
Keira Knightly and Aaron Taylor-Johnson fall in love against a surreal backdrop in Anna Karenina (2011)
Last year in July I wrote about my expectations for the soon to be released Anna Karenina (2011) directed by the renowned Joe Wright who's obsession with Keira Knightley knows no bounds. I said that as a Russian, who was made to read Anna Karenina as if it was gospel, I couldn't bare the thought of a theatrical shit show with her and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the two principal leads.
Well I'm watching it today, and I have to say with utmost disgrace to myself and my intuition, that I was wrong, which I never am people.
I was literally taken aback at how good this movie looked and felt.
But this was such an interesting take on the famous story and the writing was actually up to par with a 1 1/2 hour adaptation of a 600 page novel by Tolstoy, that's saying the obvious considering the adaptation was written by Tom Stoppard. Yes it was sappy, and missed a lot of the books subtext and essential themes, but it got the jist as best as it could, and for something so highly unadaptable as that book, that's a job well done. I think perhaps maybe I understood the script better (which had it's absurd moments) because I can recite the book verbatim.
Alicia Vikander as Princess Katerina 'Kitty' Alexandrovna
What I was impressed most about was the supporting players. I loved Matthew McFayden as Stiva, and Alicia Vikander (keep an eye on her, she's going to be the next it-girl, mark my words) as Kitty, and of course Jude Law as the torn and embarrassed Karenin, he's absolutely brilliant and I have no idea who's genius idea it was to cast him because I think he understands the material better than anyone else. In most other adaptations Karenin is seen as the villain; the heartless brute who can't forgive and cares only about his own honor and his promises to god, but Law plays him so layered and enigmatic that you get a real sense he understands that Tolstoy wrote every character in Anna Karenina to be tortured and trapped by their own inabilities to compromise.
My favorite adaptation remains the Vivien Leigh/Ralph Richardson one from 1948. There's a woman that could play Anna Karenina. Criterion bought it and it's on Hulu.
I'm really starting to sound like a substitute teacher at Russian Lit 101, so I'll finish by commenting on the aesthetic. I heard that the film was done in a strangely theatrical way because they literally didn't have the money to make it a full fledged film shot on location and with meticulous attention to detail to recreate Imperial Russia. And instead of half-assing it, Joe Wright decided to take a different route, making it more of a ballet (another Russian staple) and mostly symbolic, like a fairy tale, which is essentially what Anna Karenina is; an adult fairy tale. It's supposed to be dramatic, whimsical, magical and somewhere beyond this practical world, and I think the aesthetic used captures that. All I will say that I was right about was that yeah, Keira Knightly and Aaron Taylor Johnson do not do justice to the two main characters, too young to have a grasp of the gravity of the roles their playing, and it just sucks plain and simple.
I
don’t even understand the appeal here. He’s not even fun to look at, he might
have been in the beginning when he was on that whole matinee idol next River Pheonix skew back in the early 00’s, but then he decided to go the pretentious
artist route and become a full-fledged laughable academic all at once. And I do mean
laughable. He started doing two masters degrees at the same time one at NYU and
one at Columbia. And if you’ve ever done 1 Masters (ahem) you know how grueling
and time consuming it is, so he was basically trying to show off, and didn’t do
a half decent job of it. My cohorts and I would see him around Dodge Hall
(School of the Arts in Columbia University, what what!) droning around staring at his
blackberry and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth like he was the
reincarnation of James Dean, too cool for school; as it turns out he was just too stupid for it. And when he got into Yale,
and I didn’t for a PhD program, I had realized people had seriously lost their
effing minds...not that I deserved to get into Yale, but he sure didn't! I mean seriouslaaaay.
Finally
realizing that he’s a total joke in academic circles, he decided to go the pretentious
artist route and scathed by with a whole series of garbage films, both acting
and directing them, the newest of which, a bastardization of the William
Faulkner novel ‘As I Lay Dying’ which is unbelievably going to open in Un
Certain Regard at Cannes this year, and putting in a piss poor performance in
perhaps one of the most interesting films of the year; Harmony Korine’s Springbreakers (2012), James Franco
should get a universal 'F' for failing in life.
Pretentious ass. Franco in a still from his new film in which he stars and directs (of course) As I Lay Dying (2013)
He
once said the reason he’s so ‘productive’ or as I like to call it scattered in
a clusterfuck is because his mind is so active, which I translate into ‘I’m on
Adderall all the time’ which is basically what it seems like. I remember in
2008, he took over for Gus Van Sant’s absence when we screened Milk (2008) at Columbia for
the film program and a subtle sighs of ‘awwwww’s’ echoed through the audience.
He seemed totally stoned (of course) and couldn’t tell us anything interesting.
Not about the film, not about his career, not about anything in particular
because he was so mentally befuddled, like words were confusing him and hitting
him at the face and grabbing at his brain.
Franco in Milk (2008) probably the only good thing he's ever done.
And
now it’s just getting ridiculous, you are not a renaissance man, James Franco,
you will never be the next Kerouac, Orson Welles, or Dostoevsky, stick to what
you know how to do best; rolling fatties and making teenage girls squirm in
their panties. Just stop, for the love of god, stop everything. Now. Much love,
Vera.
