Transferring a work of art from one medium to another is a massive challenge, especially because each medium offers its own jewels but has its own limitations. To make a film of Bulgakov's masterpiece? Impossible! Why, the novel can't even be translated very well into English! You lose the richness of the original, lose Bulgakov's astounding exploitation of language and his multi-faceted (furious, detached, satiric, funny, dead-serious) depiction of Moscow. And don't forget that the Yeshua scenes are connected tightly with the Moscow scenes, offering yet more facets for Moscow (and vice-versa), as Bulgakov intended.
Vladimir Bortko performed a miracle. The dialog comes from the novel, the acting is superb, the settings magnificent and faithful.
Limitations in transforming the novel to a film? Many. One of them? Conveying the darkness of Stalinism that hangs over the novel. How did Bulgakov do it in his novel?
Many have criticized this film for treading too lightly over the horrors of Stalinism as a way to accommodate Putin's Russia. No. Bulgakov also tread over Stalinism lightly, but in extremely dark shadows. The terror is inferred, and that's how it is in the film. One difference in this regard is that the film doesn't show "Nikanor's Dream," but, there are a hundred or so inferences to Stalinism within the film, often just under the surface. To bring the backdrop of terror to the screen, Vladimir Bortko needed to do something else. He created the scenes at the end that comprise contemporaries footage from the 1930s. This was the best that he could do, and he did it well.
He leaves out an awful lot, many say. Well, what movie adaptation of any novel doesn't? Watch the 10-hour film adaptation of "The Brothers Karamazov."
The acting? Many claim that the Margarita and the Master roles come off as bland, one-dimensional. To me, I confess, that's pretty much how they come off in the novel. Sorry. This is a passionate love affair, except that we see little of the passion. This affair consists of two vital characters, but I confess that to me, they aren't very three-dimensional in the novel. Other characters, so richly drawn, demand our attention, both in the novel and the film.
Sure, the roles of Woland and Pilate are performed by actors who are way too old for their parts, but they are absolute masters and so who cares about anything as relatively insignificant as age? Sure, the devil and his retinue aren't as outrageously-appearing as they appear in the novel, but I think that depicting those things accurately and completely in the film would, for many viewers, turn the film too much in the direction of a farce. (The novel is farce, to some degree, of course, but certainly not to an overwhelming degree that cancels out its dozens of other facets.)
For fun (and some kind of edification, I suppose), I've re-read the novel in Russian and in English (all versions) after watching the film many times. As I'm reading any of them, images from the film pop up, out of my control, and they correspond with what I am reading.
In short, this is a job worthy of ten stars.
Vladimir Bortko performed a miracle. The dialog comes from the novel, the acting is superb, the settings magnificent and faithful.
Limitations in transforming the novel to a film? Many. One of them? Conveying the darkness of Stalinism that hangs over the novel. How did Bulgakov do it in his novel?
Many have criticized this film for treading too lightly over the horrors of Stalinism as a way to accommodate Putin's Russia. No. Bulgakov also tread over Stalinism lightly, but in extremely dark shadows. The terror is inferred, and that's how it is in the film. One difference in this regard is that the film doesn't show "Nikanor's Dream," but, there are a hundred or so inferences to Stalinism within the film, often just under the surface. To bring the backdrop of terror to the screen, Vladimir Bortko needed to do something else. He created the scenes at the end that comprise contemporaries footage from the 1930s. This was the best that he could do, and he did it well.
He leaves out an awful lot, many say. Well, what movie adaptation of any novel doesn't? Watch the 10-hour film adaptation of "The Brothers Karamazov."
The acting? Many claim that the Margarita and the Master roles come off as bland, one-dimensional. To me, I confess, that's pretty much how they come off in the novel. Sorry. This is a passionate love affair, except that we see little of the passion. This affair consists of two vital characters, but I confess that to me, they aren't very three-dimensional in the novel. Other characters, so richly drawn, demand our attention, both in the novel and the film.
Sure, the roles of Woland and Pilate are performed by actors who are way too old for their parts, but they are absolute masters and so who cares about anything as relatively insignificant as age? Sure, the devil and his retinue aren't as outrageously-appearing as they appear in the novel, but I think that depicting those things accurately and completely in the film would, for many viewers, turn the film too much in the direction of a farce. (The novel is farce, to some degree, of course, but certainly not to an overwhelming degree that cancels out its dozens of other facets.)
For fun (and some kind of edification, I suppose), I've re-read the novel in Russian and in English (all versions) after watching the film many times. As I'm reading any of them, images from the film pop up, out of my control, and they correspond with what I am reading.
In short, this is a job worthy of ten stars.