Movies - Anastasia

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	Movies - Anastasia

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

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 either an animated adaptation of that film or of the musical My Fair Lady
.

The movie 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. Spanish version features the voice of the Latina singer and actress Thalía as Anastasia, who participated in the soundtrack too.

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.

Fictionalization of historic events

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 ghost 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.

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 next 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.

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.

In reality, Rasputin has been dead for nearly a year before the October Revolution began. He was assassinated on 29 December, 1916.

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

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 16 years old. Anastasia was born on June 18, 1901.

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Movies - Anastasia

Fictionalization of historic events

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