'' is an
Academy Award -nominated
Animated Feature film produced and directed by
Don Bluth and
Gary Goldman at
Fox Animation Studios , and was released on
November 14 ,
1997 by
Twentieth Century Fox .
The idea for the film originates from Fox's 1956 live-action film version of
Anastasia . Executives at Fox gave Bluth and Goldman the choice of creating an animated adaptation of either the 1956 film or the
Musical ''
My Fair Lady ''.
The film was one of the most critically acclaimed since Disney's ''
Beauty And The Beast '' for making historical topics appealing to families all over the world. It became famous for its score and songs such as "Journey to the Past" and "Once Upon a December".
The film opens in 1916, in Petrograd.
Czar Nicholas II is throwing a grand ball in honour of the 300th year of Romanov family rule. His mother, the
Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (
Angela Lansbury ) gives her favorite granddaughter, 8-year-old
Grand Duchess Anastasia (
Kirsten Dunst ), a music box and a necklace reading "Together in Paris" which serves as its key. The ball is interrupted by the arrival of the mad monk
Grigori Rasputin (
Christopher Lloyd ), once trusted by the Russian Imperial Family but now loathed and feared by all. On his shoulder is his comical sidekick Bartok (
Hank Azaria ), a white
Albino bat, and on his arm swings a green
Phial , a
Reliquary filled with pure evil that he received as a gift when he sold his
Soul to the darkness for more power. The czar angrily orders him to leave at once. Enraged by this perceived insult,
Rasputin summons a curse that sparks the
Russian Revolution . During the storming of the Winter Palace by the
Bolshevik troops, the servant boy Dimitri rushes Anastasia and her grandmother Marie out of the palace when they are separated from their family, though Anastasia drops her music box. As they are running across a frozen river, Rasputin attempts to catch Anastasia when the thin ice breaks under him and he supposedly drowns in the
River Neva . As they are running up to the train station, Anastasia is unable to catch up with Marie and in the process, knocks her head on the ground, causing her to suffer from
Amnesia and becomes separated from her grandmother.
Ten years later, Russia is under
Communist rule of the dictator
Joseph Stalin . Marie, now residing in
Paris , has offered a reward for anyone who can restore her granddaughter to her. Two Russian con men living in
St. Petersburg , Dimitri (
John Cusack ) and Vladimir (
Kelsey Grammer ), a former aristocrat and member of the Imperial Court, decide to find a young girl to pass off as Anastasia and obtain the money. Meanwhile, a young woman named Anya (
Meg Ryan ), who owns the "Together in Paris" necklace, is heading towards St. Petersburg. She has no recollection of the first eight years of her life. She encounters Dimitri and Vladimir, who are struck by her resemblance to the young Grand Duchess and recruit her as their "fake" Anastasia. Dimitri and Vlad teach her everything she will need to know to portray Anastasia. During the journey to Paris, Anya and Dimitri realize a mutual attraction. Unknown to her, Dimitri also has Anastasia's music box in his suitcase.
Rasputin is not dead, but rather in limbo, unable to die because Anastasia is still alive. Bartok unwittingly brings him his magical
Reliquary after his supposed "death" ten years previously, thus restoring his old powers. He summons a legion of demons to kill Anya and complete his revenge. Two attempts are made on her life, but, both times, Dimitri manages to save her. Rasputin realizes that the only way to kill Anya is to do it in person. Anya, along with Dimitri and Vladimir, arrive in Paris, just as the former Dowager Empress declares that she will see no more girls claiming to be Anastasia. However, Sophie, the Dowager Empress' cousin, interviews Anya as a favor to her old
Flame Vladimir. Anya plays her part well, but when Sophie asks how she escaped the palace, Vlad and Dimitri become nervous, since they did not teach Anya an answer to that question. However, Anya dimly recalls a servant boy opening a secret door; she believes this memory to be nonsense, but Dimitri is shocked by what this signifies. He tells Vladimir that he was in fact the servant boy, meaning that Anya is the real Anastasia; however, he is sad that this is true, because "princesses don't marry kitchen boys."
Sophie arranges for Anya to encounter Marie at the
Russian Ballet . Anya overhears that Dimitri was only using her in a con to get Marie's money, and storms off in anger. Desperate, Dimitri kidnaps the Dowager Empress. He shows the music box to the Empress and begs her to talk to Anastasia. She reluctantly agrees, and they soon discover the truth; Anya recognizes her grandmother, and that she truly is the long lost Grand Duchess Anastasia and the last of the Romanovs. Dimitri declines the reward money, and, much to her surprise, Marie recognizes him as the servant boy who saved them. But because Dimitri does not tell Anya that he refused the money, she holds the belief that he is nothing more than a heartless con man. He leaves, determined not to interfere with Anya's destiny as a princess. Marie finally tells Anya that Dimitri refused the money. Realizing her error, Anya goes to search for Dimitri, but when Pooka is led by Rasputin, Anya runs after him and she is trapped in a complex garden
Labyrinth . After terrorizing her, Rasputin finally then reveals himself to Anya and tries to kill her on the
Alexander Bridge over an icy
Seine . Dimitri returns to save Anya. In the ensuing fight, Anya manages to destroy Rasputin's reliquary by crushing it under her shoe. With the reliquary destroyed, Rasputin disintegrates into dust, his soul banished to Hell as part of the pact he made with the darkness. Dimitri and Anya reconcile and
Elope , sending a farewell letter to Marie and Sophie.
The film opened in
New York City on
November 14 ,
1997 and across the world from
November 21 ,
1997 (US release) to
September 5 ,
1998 (Japanese release). 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, making it
Don Bluth 's most successful film to date.
As a musical in the vein of per 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"; its pop single version was recorded and produced by
Deana Carter .
Due to its success, Fox Home Entertainment created a direct-to-video spin-off movie called ''
Bartok The Magnificent '' (1999), featuring Rasputin's albino bat crony. It also starred
Kelsey Grammer , who voiced Vladimir in ''Anastasia''; in ''Bartok the Magnificent'' he voiced Zozi the Bear.
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 execution of the Imperial family. 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 of these was Anna Anderson , whose story inspired the original 1956 '' Anastasia '' film on which this film is based, although this film doesn't actually deal with Anderson directly.
- In the film, Rasputin curses the Royal Family, bringing about the Russian Revolution . The real leaders of the Revolution (first Alexander Kerensky , then Vladimir Lenin ) are not portrayed. Grigori 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, though (as many have argued) with the intent being to gain power for himself. 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.
- The storming of the Winter Palace during the October Revolution of 1917 was not directed against the Czar but against the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky. The Czar had been deposed during the February Revolution of the same year.
- 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. In any event, the family was deeply saddened by his death. By the account of one of the assassins at Yekaterinburg , the Empress and the Grand Duchesses were wearing little pins with an iconic portrait of Rasputin at the time of their death, showing they believed he would be a saint.
- Rasputin's death was a result of being frozen in ice; this followed an overdose of poison, several knife and gun wounds, and being thrown several stories onto the ice. A group of nobles plotted to kill him due to his growing influence over the Tsar and, particularly, the Tsarina. It is entirely likely Rasputin's film death was shown intentionally as drowning was the least violent of the above mentioned methods of death and the studio was attempting to downplay the violence in order to be as family-oriented as such film would allow. Also, the film shows Rasputin as trying to capture the Empress Dowager and Anastasia near the frozen river Neva, but the ice is too thin to support his weight.
- The palace depicted in the movie is the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo ( Nicholas II and his family actually lived in the neighboring Alexander Palace ). The staircase which Anastasia originally enters through is almost exactly like the actual grand staircase of the Catherine Palace.
- In the film, Anastasia is only a young child (the film states she is eight) at the time of the Revolution, when in fact, she was four months shy of 16 years old. Anastasia was born on June 18 , 1901 .
- 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.
- At the beginning of the film - 1916, the hanging ornament marked "300" in the ball room implies it is the celebration of the Romanov Tercentenary , when the trecentenary was in 1913.
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."''
Coincidentally, 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 ".
Dimitri was probably inspired by
Gleb Botkin and Pooka, Anya's fictional dog, as the real Anastasia's spaniel, Jimmy.
- It has been noted that Anastasia and her grandmother are the only members of the Romanov family who are prominently featured in the film. The Dowager Empress had fond memories of Alexandra, although in reality the two disliked each other. However, it is also possible that the Dowager Empress, who outlived Nicholas II by ten years, was despondent over the murder of both of her son and his bride together, and may have remembered Alexandra more fondly.
- The musical number ''Paris Holds the Key (To Your Heart)'' includes cameos by various historical figures from the time, including Maurice Chevalier , Sigmund Freud , Charles Lindbergh , Josephine Baker , Claude Monet , Isadora Duncan , Auguste Rodin , and Gertude Stein .
- As with many Don Bluth films, the characters carry some of their voice actors' physical and personality traits. It was stated in ''The Art of Anastasia'' that one half of Anya's face is made to look like Meg Ryan and the other half like Audrey Hepburn .
- The Parisian bridge on which the confrontation between Rasputin, Dimitri, and Anya occurs is the Alexander III Bridge , named after the real Anastasia Romanov's grandfather on the occasion of his state visit to France in the 1870s.
- When Anya goes to Sophie's house in Paris, some of the photographs in the background are actual photos of different members of the Imperial family.
- Rasputin is depicted as a Lich or Demi-lich.
- Anastasia was really 17 when her family was killed in the movie she's 8.
