Lady with the Dog Film Review essays

Lady with the Dog Film Review essays The film representations simple cinematography and dialog accurately capture the mood created in Chekhovs story, but it fails in other areas. The motives and thoughts of the characters could not be easily discovered, as the film focused on carrying on the plot with little attention given to characterization; leaving the actors to fill the void with expression and specific actions. The actors tended to over-do this, creating more of a caricature than character. While some may contend the short story translates better into film I do not believe this to be true. Often certain aspects purposely left out of short stories for the sake of conciseness and brevity are replaced with Hollywood traditions that take away from the nature of the literature. The acting most prominently stood out to me as a major conflict with Chekhovs intentions of what the characters should be like. The actors overportrayed Gurov and his wife most prevalently. He turned Gurov into a lifeless, dull, and almost villainous character. The actress playing Gurovs wife combined with the scripting made her appear to be an unrealistically arrogant woman. Chekhov no more than hinted at these characteristics in the text, and the perception of his wife to be such a disgusting person what that of Gurovs. Opposite of these flaws, Iya Savina portrayed the character of Anna to perfection. Her mild yet desperate disposition reflected exactly how I pictured the character in my mind when reading the story. Contrasting moments of strong emotion and struggle kept my interest at times when the plot inched along. Had Gurov and his wife followed suit and fit the characters more accurately I could have easily overlooked the other pitfalls. The short story tends to omit details about emotion, focusing on driving the plot and making a strong point in doing so. Minority Report personifies a recent example of Hollywood going against su...