Word: astrov
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...comedy of a dying class whose suffering and humanity are not less because it deserves to die. Even the stage directions are comic. "There is also a map of Africa on the wall, obviously of no use to anybody." That map should fairly exude incongruity, and when Dr. Astrov, searching desperately for something to say, observes that it's probably roasting in Africa right now, we ought to laugh at the statement's inappropriateness at the same time that we recognize his desperation. In the Boston Rep's production the map is too tiny to notice and Astrov's remark...
...THAT the movie is uniformly gray. Chekhov intended his plays to be comedy of a sort, and the comic moments are not lost in the film. Vanya's senile mother reads her pamphlets on the emancipation of women and smokes cigarettes (which seems to encompass her idea of emancipation). Astrov gives a stirring rendition of the weather report when Vanya interrupts his seduction of Irina--an example of the Chekhovian principle that the words we exchange in conversation don't mean a damn thing. And Vanya, the prototype useless intellectual, constantly brings a smile of recognition with his temper tantrums...
...acting in this film is marvelous, particularly Innokenty Smoktunosky's Vanya. His petulant spats with his maman, his grandiose pretensions, his weepy self-pity; the sarcastic facial expressions alone are phenomenal. Sergei Bondarchuk, as Dr. Astrov, is a bit too much the Russian bear for my taste. Astrov's passions are too often expressed by the tremor of voice and moistness of eye that Omar Sharif made infamous in Dr. Zhivago. But he can be subtle when necessary as in his scenes with Sonya, in which he delicately and deftly refuses her offer of love...
...remember at my first viewing of the film feeling that this Sonya was too young and pretty to be Chekhov's Sonya: I envisioned a cowish sort of girl--hardworking, trusting, basically provincial and unstimulating. The Sonya in the film is so captivating that I couldn't imagine why Astrov did not immediately fall in love with...
...second time through, however, this reading made perfect sense to me. In fact, it creates the most poignant moments in the film. Because Sonya is so lovely, Astrov's rejection of her is all the more telling. He admits himself that it is too late for him: he is too coarsened, too disillusioned. A relationship with a young girl would be absurd at this point. The pure sensuality of an affair with Yelena is more apropos of his desires and his capacity to act. Meanwhile, Sonya will fade away in the country, and it is her tragedy--the tragedy...