We go to Spring 1809, starting with Andrei, who walks and looks at the dying oak, rather than riding past it with Pierre coming in. These shots are well done and they work pretty well on the screen.
Pierre insists that he has changed, but Andrei thinks she is the same. I really like this emphasis because we have seen (both in the novel and the show) Pierre go through a couple of radical transformations (three, depending on how you want to break it up, with his inheritance, then marriage, and then his induction into Masonry), but what seems to be very important to Pierre's character arc in the novel is that his supposed change is false, or at least, doesn't bring him happiness. Since film, unless one is willing to resort to voiceover narration, which this show has rejected, unlike the previous BBC version, has the barrier of being unable to show the inner thoughts of a person (good directors and actors can suggest and help the audience understand), having this show up in dialogue helps drive the points of the novel into the viewer.
Andrei accentuates his remorse and how he treated his wife and how he is unable to do anything about, so now he wants to live for himself. I definitely sense more sympathy for Andrei's dead wife in the show than in the book, and just like the softening of the Helene character, especially at the beginning, rather than her flat characterization in the novel, seems to be an explicit decision by the creators to beef up the development of the women characters, which makes me wonder how the arc of Natasha will be handled, especially the Anatole scenes and the epilogue. Pierre and Andrei's discussion is shot around a small table with them eating with the really striking visual of the simplicity of the meal versus the high society dinners we have seen. In their conversation, the fact that they both failed in marriage is really hammered home. Since the novel ends with the (apparent, since it is somewhat left up to the reader as to what the fates of the characters will be) success of the domestic scenes and lives of the four remaining main characters, stressing the failure of the domestic lives of Pierre and Andrei at this point show the unfulfilled nature of the characters, just as Andrei's libertarian selfishness should be seen as a failure of morality.
The conversation continues outside in a sunset, with the sky being very prominent, and has a couple of really nice scale shots, hitting Andrei's thematic realization without hitting the viewer over the head with it. The insistence of people not being able to change fits with the conversation with Nikolai Bolkonsky and Pierre. Pierre also sticks up for the Rostovs before Andrei goes there and immediately sees Natasha playing in the flowers. Count Rostov introduces the two and encourages them talking to each other. It seems like they get more familiar with each other here before he hears her singing, and again, the childishness and innocence of it isn't really emphasized because of the age issue (there is only four years difference between the actors).
The first fifteen minutes or so of the episode have a nice leisurely pace. I'm complained a little about the show being a little too fast-paced and not developing the scenes long enough, but I think this episode did a good job of taking the scenes that needed to be a little slow and letting them breathe a little, even if it comes at the price of rushing the Natasha and Andrei relationship.
The conversation with Osip and Pierre really hits home that he is trying to change the world without changing himself, which is of course a key Tolstoy concept, perhaps one of his famous ones because of its population through Gandhi. He forgives his wife and she moves in, appears kind to him, but she is naked in bed with Boris later. The two have a conversation about Boris and Natasha, where she recommends making it clear to Natasha she can't marry her because she doesn't have money. Boris is pretty much in love with Helene in this version and the actual development of this relationship is interesting and seems fresh to me (rather than just cutting Boris or cutting around him in shortened versions, which is what the abridged versions tend to do). This is somewhat of a risky move since he sort of just disappears from the novel after acquiring his wife. Amusingly, though Natasha has been made much more mature in this version, Boris seems much less mature and much less goal oriented than he is in the novel, which probably gives him a bit more characterization, just as Helene.
At the ball, Bilibin and Anna Pavlovna have a conversation about Napoleon won't be able to have avoid invading Russia. Alexander enters without a lot of circumstance, all things considered, and there is a long lingering and then following shot of Pierre's reaction after Alexander walks off with Helene and he goes and sees Andrei, has a conversation about how Andrei has been effective in his reforms (this seems to be the extent as to what we will see of this part of Andrei's story and even in the novel it is somewhat off-handed anyway, but develops the difference between these two characters).
All the big ball prep was skipped save for a conversation with Natasha and her mom (in this episode she is more important and prevalent than the previous episodes, where she has been basically absent). Here at the ball, Natasha and Andrei get a piano and voice accompaniment that fades into a montage of their courting intercut with their dance at the ball, including a kiss they have in the snow before we go to Pierre and Andrei talking about Natasha.
Andrei and his father's conversation is played pretty close to the vest. Nikolai Bolkonsky is a difficult character to read here. He is not over the top, obvious, and manipulative as he can be in many adaptations. He is much more restrained and his motives are kind of left up to the viewer.
We cut from Andrei leaving to six months later, (winter 1810) to a conversation between Nikolai Rostov and Countess Rostova, who is trying to convince him to marry Julie Karagina. She plays it extremely manipulative, while he plays very aloof, and I'm not sure he plays the honor part of the scene quite strong enough. The scene seems a lot weaker to me than (the immediately more iconic) the scene Nikolai has with his father when he asks him for money.
We go straight fro there to the Uncle Mikhail cabin, with the family arriving and singing in their house (Count Rostov takes part in this version as there is no hunt, a decision that is probably wise because the change in values is so stark there that Nikolai would be shown as a villain, which you could play him as, considering his actions, anger, and final monologue to Pierre, and it would be interesting to see an adaptation play that up). The scene really punctuates the culture, country-ness, and almost gypsy-ness (the ghost story after this plays it up as well kind of combining it with the costume scene where they go the widow aunt. Sonya gets a bit of a character moment there, something we can say, understandably, that has been lacking.) of the scene, and Natasha gets her dance, looking uncertain but fitting in perfectly (the dialogue even makes it explicit that it is in the blood) and the camera kind of shakes with her, feels really handheld, and creates this really odd sensation that is more fun than playing it really dramatically. It is the Rostovs, who are saying that they wish nothing would change and they could be like children, who see the comet (this is immediately succeeded by Nikolai expressing his love for Sonya to his parents in a conversation that emphasizes the money problems of the Rostovs, and, in a notable departure, Nikolai's complicit nature in their money problems.).
The episode ends with Nikolai riding off while Sonya watches, which is a good dramatization of the goodbye that isn't really played up in the novel and acts as a rather effective episode end.
No comments:
Post a Comment