ILLUZION CINEMA
THE FIGURE.
DOSTOEVSKY
DOSTOEVSKY
The first screen adaptation of Dostoevsky was the film “Crime and Punishment” by Vasily Goncharov, made in 1909 and considered lost. In total, more than 150 films and TV films based on his works have been released internationally over the course of time.
Dostoevsky’s novels happened to resonate with many trends in world cinema: from German Expressionism to the French New Wave and Italian neorealism.
For Expressionists, Dostoevsky is primarily a writer of pain and screaming.
Dostoevsky’s novels happened to resonate with many trends in world cinema: from German Expressionism to the French New Wave and Italian neorealism.
For Expressionists, Dostoevsky is primarily a writer of pain and screaming.
In the era of the French New Wave, Dostoevsky is seen as the creator of a complex nonlinear narrative, in which the characters are more carriers of ideas than “living people”. In Luchino Visconti’s cinema, on the contrary, the return to the traditions of realism makes the heroes acquire “flesh and blood” and merge with the landscapes of the Italian city ("White Nights"). Location shooting was also actively used in Živojin Pavlović's film “The Enemy”, based on the short story “The Double”, in which the drama of the disintegration of the human personality took place in post-war Yugoslavia. Soviet cinema, which in one way or another absorbed the traditions of the natural school, saw in Dostoevsky the defender of the world of the oppressed - in Soviet films, the physiological essay was often combined with the grotesque characteristic of Russian literature from Nikolay Gogol to Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin.
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Along with canonical adaptations, this program includes little-known films. For example, "The Idiot" by Pyotr Chardynin is one of the first attempts to transfer Dostoevsky’s novel to the screen. The film is not particularly ingenious, but at the same time it reproduces all the main events of the novel. Another example is Akira Kurosawa’s “The Idiot”, in which it is not so much the events that are important as the reproduction of Dostoevsky’s worldview. Another “pair” of films is “Crime and Punishment” by Pierre Chenal and “The Puritan” by Jeff Musso. In the first case, the story is conveyed quite accurately and is tied to the Petersburg interiors of Dostoevsky’s time. In the second one, the hero of the film, the action of which is moved to France, is a neurotic religious fanatic who killed a prostitute in the name of freeing the world from evil and debauchery. In Andrzej Żuławski’s film “Mad Love”, “The Idiot” is turned into a burlesque, and the plot goes far beyond the original’s content.
Sergey Ogudov
Sergey Ogudov
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Along with canonical adaptations, this program includes little-known films. For example, "The Idiot" by Pyotr Chardynin is one of the first attempts to transfer Dostoevsky’s novel to the screen. The film is not particularly ingenious, but at the same time it reproduces all the main events of the novel. Another example is Akira Kurosawa’s “The Idiot”, in which it is not so much the events that are important as the reproduction of Dostoevsky’s worldview. Another “pair” of films is “Crime and Punishment” by Pierre Chenal and “The Puritan” by Jeff Musso. In the first case, the story is conveyed quite accurately and is tied to the Petersburg interiors of Dostoevsky’s time. In the second one, the hero of the film, the action of which is moved to France, is a neurotic religious fanatic who killed a prostitute in the name of freeing the world from evil and debauchery. In Andrzej Żuławski’s film “Mad Love”, “The Idiot” is turned into a burlesque, and the plot goes far beyond the original’s content.
Sergey Ogudov
Sergey Ogudov
Russian Empire, “A. Khanzhonkov” Trading House
1910, 20 minutes
1910, 20 minutes
France, Les Films Derby
1937, 84 minutes
1937, 84 minutes
USSR, Mezhrabpomfilm
1932, 90 minutes
1932, 90 minutes
France, General Production
1935, 91 minutes
1935, 91 minutes
Japan, Shochiku
1951, 166 minutes
1951, 166 minutes
France, Parc Film, Marianne Productions
1969, 89 minutes
1969, 89 minutes
Italy – France, Cinematografica Associati (CI.AS.), Intermondia Films
1957, 100 minutes
1957, 100 minutes
Yugoslavia, Viba Film
1965, 82 minutes
1965, 82 minutes