Welcome gentle readers to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today it’s another delight from Mosfilm, an adaptation for the screen of Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya.
Reviews:
Letterboxd says:
Uncle Vanya is a bittersweet symphony of devotion and melancholy, a character left adrift by those he cherished. I often find myself mulling over my two cherished cinematic interpretations of this poignant Chekhovian tale, and the verdict remains unchanged: Smoktunovskiy eclipses even Redgrave. Both are titans in portraying minds teetering on the brink of collapse, yet here we have THE ensemble. The delicate Sonya (Irina Kupchenko) holds her own against the ethereal Elena (Irina Miroshnichenko) in Konchalovskiy’s adaptation—by the way, the only one of his works I truly admire. Meanwhile, the splendid doctor Astrov (Sergei Bondarchuk) sometimes seems to fade into the background compared to Voinitsky’s fervent longing for Professor Serebryakov’s new bride. It’s a decaying aristocratic haven, resplendent in its decay. I can’t help but weep alongside Innokentiy Mikhailovich’s character every time I revisit that heart-wrenching moment when he pilfers a vial of morphine from the doctor. What a remarkable film, brimming with my favourite actors.
The NYT says:
the new Russian film version of “Uncle Vanya,” which opened yesterday at the Regency Theater, is probably the best filmed Chekhov I’ve ever seen. Adapted and directed by Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, this “Uncle Vanya” is an exceedingly graceful, beautifully acted production that manages to respect Chekhov as a man of his own time, as well as what I would assume to be the Soviet view of Chekhov as Russia’s saddest, gentlest, funniest and most compassionate revolutionary playwright.
russianfilmhub says:
While the deep Russian soul is in many ways immeasurable and undefinable, there are still those who can show it. Watch this beautiful rendition of Uncle Vanya to bear witness to the brilliance of film director, Andrei Konchalovsky, writer, Anton Chekhov, as well as many of the greatest Russian actors, including Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Sergei Bondarchuk and Irina Kupchenko.
Part color, part black and white, this film creates a unique mood and atmosphere of the life of the nobility on a small estate. Alfred Schnittke’s music adds a second meaning to the picture and immerses the viewer in the drama of the nineteenth century. The story takes place in a small family estate: family members meet and discuss everyday issues, Russian laziness and hard life. They enjoy the Russian nature in silence, but at some point, things must fall apart.
My take:
So this was my first encounter with Chekov and I have to admit I missed the point at first. I kept waiting for something to happen. It wasn’t until I read some reviews and watched a few videos that I realized the ennui was the point. It brought the film into focus for me and I realized how grim the lives of the characters really are.
Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy
Writers: Anton Chekov (play)
Andrey Konchalovskiy (screenplay)
Notable Actors: None that I know of.
Plot (Spoilers!):
Professor Serebryakov and his young second wife Yelena enjoy an urban lifestyle financed by the hard work of Vanya, the Professor’s brother in law from his first marriage. His daughter from his first wife, Sofya, is also employed at the estate where her and Vanya manage affairs and send the money directly to the Professor. Their lives are otherwise quite empty.
The Professor and Yelena have come to visit and both Vanya as well as the local doctor Astrov, a frequent house guest, are deeply enamored of Yelena. She is torture to the two men who feel that they have spent their best years working and living in the provinces while life has passed them by. She flirts with them a bit but ultimately wants nothing to do with them. Sofya is in pain as well, she suffers from low self esteem and desperately loves Dr. Astrov, who doesn’t return the feelings. It’s a pretty sorry state of affairs.
The situation reaches a breaking point when the Professor announces his intention to sell the estate for a profit and move to Finland. Vanya explodes and attempts, unsuccessfully, to kill the Professor. The Professor decides not to sell the estate after all, leaving Vanya, Dr. Astrov and Sofya to their grim and gray lives.
15 comments
Comments are closed.
Thanks for the link. Will watch.
Enjoy!
Konchalovsky lived for a while in the US, where he directed Runaway Train – based on a script by Kurosawa. He returned to Russia and in 2019 directed SIN, a Russian-Italian biopic of Michaelangelo. It is a magnificent film.
I know people who worked on Michelangelo. I am not gonna get into details how he treated them but he is highly egotistic and vain despite his age (*1937) still relentless in his will to realize his movies. Fwiw Michelangelo was enabled by a rich person I think Russian, providing the several millions (7?). I forgot.
None of which changes my view on him as a great artist.
I might write down some quick thoughts on above Vanya. Just to point at directing movies. It might be too academic for today but it´s sad that the more movies are in our everyday lives the less we know about the “arcane” art of directing and everything that is related to what is actually happening before a shot and when it´s executed. At least we have such terms as decoupage and mis-en-scene to address a few issues.
Did you meet him back in the heyday 1980s, if I may ask…
Sergei Bondarchuk (who plays the doctor) is also (among other films) the director of War and Peace (in 1965), which (arguably even today) is the most expensive film ever made. The battle scenes, which required ten thousands extras from the Red Army, are incredible. (These scenes can be easily found on the net, they are absolutely spectacular.)
Excellent adaptation of Chekov. I enjoyed every minute. The slavic mood, the dialogs. The stunning actresses (It wouldn’t have worked without her). Also because I am, sort of, in my Chekov period these days, having bought just a month ago everything he wrote and was available in a very nice bookstore that my daughter recommended to me… Sometimes the stars just align. Thank you for that movie, which I wouldn’t have looked for otherwise.
My pleasure. Mosfilm has War and Peace up too I believe.
Looks good, will watch later~
Mosfilm has so many subtitled films, a great resource!
May I humbly ask for a film in inclusion in the pantheon of ranks here?
Sand Pebbles from 1966 is probably Steve McQueen’s best performance, with a bunch of co-stars everybody knows.
It’s a good parable for now, the plot is a USN gunboat on a Chinese river in the 1920’s, and how everything is run because of Chinese help on board, and when the Chinese workers split, everything goes to hell. (i’ve said too much, but it is written)
I’d like to but it’s buy/rent on YouTube.
Thank you very much! It was really good. Touching.
Sure thing!
Chekov is the maker of worlds par excellance. Pair this with “The Master and Margarita” and you see a Russia transformed, but still essentially Russia. Chekov literally lived in the end times of a centuries old autocracy. He has lessons to teach us, likewise living in the end times of an Empire.
Stay safe.
FWIW, “a house in Finland” the professor is hoping to purchase would most certainly have been in Terijoki, which had since 1870 (completion of the railway from Saint Petersburg to Helsinki) grown into a villa community for well-to-do of Saint Petersburg. It was only two hours away from the capital by train, and had all the amenities available.
Summertime there were more than 70,000 visitors from Saint Petersburg and many artists and politicians had a permanent residence there. And as it was in autonomous Finland, often the revolutionaries (like Lenin) found it comfortable place to “hide”. Technically the official Finland required passports and currency exchanges from the visitors, but business being business the locals did not usually bother with the formalities. Helsinki was far away, and until 1812 the area had been Russia, anyway.
Try the film Vanya on 42 Street. Shawn Wallace and a wonderful cast. An nice surprise at the start: find the line where the movie part stops and the play starts.
Thomas
Another wonderful, and haunting Vanya: Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, 2021, Japan:
“Based on Haruki Murakami’s 2014 short story of the same name,[5] it stars Hidetoshi Nishijima as a theatre director who directs a multilingual production of Uncle Vanya while dealing with the death of his wife.”
I saw a filmed production of ‘Vanya’ (as it was called) by the (UK) National Theatre last year. It was a one man play with Andrew Scott performing all the roles. It was a virtuoso performance, impressive on its own terms, but a poor adaptation. Scott has to exaggerate each role to differentiate each personification that he is embodying, and make these differentiations clear to the audience, but in so doing the understated characterisation and quiet desperation of the characters in the text is eliminated. It struck me as a strange choice of play for a feat of that kind; technically doable but the effort struck me as misdirected.
I shall have to watch this, as well as Vanya on 42nd street which is in my DVD collection but remains unwatched, and Drive My Car which I’ve been meaning to see for a while.