Anastasia (1997 film)

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Anastasia is an animated feature film produced and directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman at Fox Animation Studios, and it was released on November 21, 1997 by Twentieth Century Fox.

The idea for the film originates from Fox's 1956 live-action film version of Anastasia. Fox executives gave Bluth and Goldman the choice of creating an animated adaptation of either the 1956 film or the musical My Fair Lady.

The film features the voices of Meg Ryan as Anastasia, John Cusack as Dimitri, Kelsey Grammer as Vladimir, Christopher Lloyd as Rasputin, Hank Azaria as Bartok, Bernadette Peters as Sophie, Kirsten Dunst as the young Anastasia, Angela Lansbury as Dowager Empress Marie, Rick Jones as Tsar Nicholas II, Liz Callaway, and Andrea Martin. The film features songs by Stephen Flaherty and David Newman. The Spanish soundtrack for Latin America features the voice of the Latina singer and actress Thalía as Anastasia. The Spanish soundtrack for Spain has a different cast of voices.

There are many popular songs included in the film. These include "Once Upon A December", "Learn To Do It" and "At The Beginning" (Richard Marx and Donna Lewis).

The movie is an epic adventure of soul searching.

Release

The film opened in New York City on November 14 1997 and across the world on November 21. It debuted and peaked at number two at the North American box office and grossed over US$58,403,000 dollars; the worldwide gross totalled $139,801,000.

As a musical in the vein of Disney animated features, the film is notable for being one of Bluth's most critically acclaimed works, and for being one of the few animated features produced in the Cinemascope process. (The film is officially credited as using CinemaScope per Don Bluth's wishes, but the format is actually a regular anamorphic film and did not use CinemaScope optics, which had been retired for 30 years by the release of Anastasia.)

Anastasia was nominated for two Academy Awards in the categories of "Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score" and "Best Music, Original Song" for "Journey to the Past". At the awards ceremony, "Journey to the Past" was performed by R&B singer Aaliyah, who recorded the pop single version of the song. Another song which gained recognition is the ballad "Once upon a December".

Due to its success, Fox Home Entertainment created a spin-off movie called Bartok the Magnificent (1999).

Fictionalization of historic events

As a fairy-tale style adaptation of the legend of the Russian grand duchess Anastasia, the film imagines that Anastasia, daughter of Nicholas II of Russia, escapes the Imperial Palace during the October Revolution and survives the slaughter of the Imperial family. She loses her memory, battles the lich of the evil monk Grigori Rasputin and his sidekick Bartok (an albino fruit bat), convinces her paternal grandmother Maria Fyodorovna of her true identity, and falls in love with the kitchen-boy Dimitri, who helped her escape as a youngster.

The film took several liberties with the details of historical events, and some Orthodox Christians were offended due to the historical Anastasia's sainthood, which was declared formally the following year. Some of the differences with actual history include:

Though the body of two members of the Russian Imperial Family, including one of the daughters, have not been found, there is no evidence that any family members, including Anastasia, survived, although there have been many claims to survival. The most famous being Anna Anderson whose story inspired the Anastasia (1956) film on which this movie is based.

In the film, a curse from Rasputin brings about the Russian Revolution. The real leader of the Revolution (Vladimir Lenin) is not portrayed. Rasputin was a religious mystic, who washed infrequently and was often drunk. Nevertheless, he gained the trust of the Tsarina Alexandra when he seemed to alleviate the symptoms of hemophilia from which her son Alexei suffered. All the evidence points to Rasputin's support of the royal family. However, in a letter written just before his death, he predicted the Russian Revolution, based not on any mystical powers but on simple observation of political facts, and perhaps the writers used this as a basis for their idea.

Judging by his letters and those of the Tsarina, Rasputin was always careful to be polite and even affectionate to the members of the royal family, although by other accounts he spoke disparagingly of them to others and made lewd remarks about the Grand Duchesses. Anastasia would not have seen him as an enemy but as a family friend. A more realistic portrayal would have him helping her, perhaps altruistically, perhaps with the intention of seducing her. Alexandra certainly never would have allowed Nicholas II to ban Grigori Rasputin from the Imperial palace.

In reality, Rasputin had been dead for nearly a year before the Revolution began. He was assassinated on 16 December, 1916, although this film sets the Revolution in 1916. In reality it occurred in February of 1917.

The Imperial Palace is missing an entire story and a grand column that is sporting a cross bearing angel at the entrance.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, 1910

The film depicts Anastasia as escaping from the Imperial Palace during the Revolution, when in fact she stayed with her family, living at first in Tsarskoe Selo and later in Tobolsk in Siberia until they were executed by a squad of Bolshevik secret police under Yakov Yurovsky in Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg in a period from July 16 to July 17, 1918.

In the film, Anastasia is only a young child at the time of the Revolution, when in fact, she was two months shy of 16 years old. Anastasia was born on June 18, 1901.

The Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna did not live in Paris, either before or after the Revolution. She lived in Russia until 1920, when she evacuated the Crimea with White forces, and thereafter in her native Denmark. She was a daughter of Christian IX of Denmark and his Queen consort, Louise of Hesse.

At the times the story takes place, Saint Petersburg was known as Petrograd or Leningrad, not Saint Petersburg, as it is called in the movie.

Bluth and Goldman, who did extensive historical research on the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia and the Russian Revolution for the film, never intended for their film to be scrupulously analyzed for historical accuracy; their film is based upon the legend of Anastasia having survived the slaughter of the family. A disclaimer can be found at the end of the credits for the film. It reads as follows:

"While some of the characters and events depicted in this film were inspired by well-known historical figures and events, the portrayal of such characters and the depiction of such events are fictional. All other characters and incidents portrayed and names used were created for the purpose of fictitious dramatization and any similarity to the names, characters, and history of actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional."

Ironically, this now-standard disclaimer was created in the aftermath of a scandal and lawsuit brought by Prince Felix Yusupov -- the man who is most often credited with the murder of Rasputin -- in 1932, against MGM for their film Rasputin and the Empress, which took enormous artistic liberties with the available facts.

The film is based on the play from the 1950s by Marcelle Maurette adapted by Guy Bolton and turned into the film Anastasia (1956) which was based on the legend of Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia surfacing as 'Anna Anderson'.

External link

Don Bluth
Video Games
Dragon's Lair (1983) • Space Ace (1984) • (1991)
Animated films
The Small One (1978) • Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1982) • The Secret of NIMH (1982) • An American Tail (1986) • The Land Before Time (1988) • All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) • Rock-A-Doodle (1991) • Thumbelina (1994) A Troll in Central Park (1994) • The Pebble and the Penguin (1995) • Anastasia (1997) • Bartok the Magnificent (1999) • Titan A.E. (2000)

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