Non-Fiction: Anna Karenina Production Design

When it was decided that the book “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy was going to be made into a movie, Joe Wright, the director, had a large and demanding task ahead of him.

He had to capture the expressive expeditions of the characters while transmitting the grand scope of the background. Wright now faced an alarming dilemma. Should he shoot the film in its Russian locations as told in the story? Should he expand the budget of the film to and unfriendly amount? Instead, Wright chose to set the movie in a rundown theater, to give it the feel of a decaying Russian society in the 19^th century.

It is quite startling to think of the magnificent set of “Anna Karenina” being set in a derelict theater. There are so many different settings set outside and inside, with thousands of people or two, all done in one theater. The epicness of the movie itself, with its sloping ballrooms and dirty streets of Russia, is quite extraordinary by itself; but to think that it was all filmed inside a theater is amazing at the determination to create exactly what you want someone to see.

  Wright had incredible skill and willpower to transform a dilapidated theater into the streets and houses of Russia. Since he didn’t want to overspend the budget and travel to Russia itself, it only made his task harder. Instead of having the streets and ballrooms already built in front of him, he now had the task of creating this town. This, while being extremely difficult, would’ve helped Wright in a way. He now had the power to build exactly what he wanted to see, which helped immensely. 

Beautiful Creatures

The book I am almost finished with Beautiful Creatures, and it is a really fantastic book. There are two main problems in this book. The first one is that Lena, the main character’s girlfriend, is a Caster, which is like a witch, and on her sixteenth birthday she will be Claimed, meaning that it will be decided whether she will go Light or Dark. Ethan and Lena find out there is a curse on Lena’s family that every Caster will go Dark. Desperate to change it, they work on finding the cure to this hazard while meanwhile, Lena’s murderous Dark Caster mother, Sarafine, is hunting her down to kill her.

         The second problem is that in the small, Southern town of Gatlin, where this takes place, they don’t take kindly to newcomers. And when anyone, especially a newcomer, does anything remotely dangerous or hazardous, Mrs. Lincoln and her cronies from the DAR take fight. Lena, being a Caster not yet sixteen, has trouble controlling her powers, and one fateful day, the rich Southern girls are teasing her in class, and she accidently breaks a window with her mind. Mayhem ensures, with mothers from the DAR screaming over that their children could’ve been killed, yelling that Lena is mentally insane. And none so extreme as Mrs. Lincoln. In fact, she goes so far to organize a court case for Lena, which she loses, eventually, but she is still planning to get Lena.

         These two plots, which we thought were separated, are finally connected in the end. It turns out that Sarafine, which we thought this whole time to be coming after Lena, was actually in the town of Gatlin this entire time. She was using Mrs. Lincoln’s body as a host, which explains the severity of Mrs. Lincoln’s plans for Lena.

         So far, it has not concluded whether Lena will go Light or Dark, but the danger is creeping up on her every second. And now that Sarafine has Lena in her grasp, the dangers are even more present.