Word: nekhlyudov
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...that plot: Katyusha emerges from prison for her trial while Prince Nekhlyudov arrives for jury duty. She is falsely charged with theft and murder while he realizes she is the love of his youth--whom he had impregnated, given an unwanted hundred rubles, and deserted. She is unjustly sentenced to four year's hard labor while he becomes obsessed by his guilt. She lives contentedly in jail while he tries everything to get her out. She turns down his offer of marriage while he succeeds in having her pardoned. Finally, she opts for another while he carriages off into Siberian...
That's what happens when you summarize Tolstoy in a paragraph. What is important here is evil--when Nekhlyudov stopped listening to his conscience, evil began. So, too, the vices of bureaucrats and the injustices of procedure share Nekhlyudov's guilt for Katyusha's dilemma. But forgiveness is also important: both Katyusha and Nekhlyudov emerge "good people" after their long and torturing period of atonement. Not to mention the people, the imperfect masses Tolstoy cherished...
...amazed at the skill with which one of Hollywood's most extravagant producers interprets Tolstoyan Socialism. Instead of being, like the two previous versions, the old tale of young love reunited, We Live Again is comparatively faithful to its Russian original. In the earlier sequences where young Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov (Fredric March) goes to church with Peasant Katusha Maslova (Anna Sten), before seducing her in a greenhouse. Director Rouben Mamoulian allows his fondness for his scene to delay his story. Later, when Dmitri, a bearded patrician in the jury box, again meets Katusha, a prostitute accused of murder, the class...
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