El principe idiota

This is still in many ways the finest screen version and effort of squeezing Dostoyevsky's mammoth novel into the frames of a 90 minutes movie, but it is not a failure, on the contrary no one else has been able to make such a beautiful comprimation of the gigantic novel while still maintaining its major content; and it's above all the actors that make this film wholly commendable, especially Gérard Philppe as Mushkin, and there has never been a more convincing Mushkin on the screen. Aglaia and Nastasia Filippovna are also perfect, and the film has been endowed with a wonderful music score, enhancing its beauty and esthetic qualities. It is early in black-and-white but still stylistically perhaps the best effort to put the novel Dostoyevsky himself regarded as his best into a comprehensive screen version.

Stiffly directed, clumsily edited, weighed down with pointless shots to show off Leon Barsacq's sumptuous sets of 19th century Saint Petersburg, this is still a scorching and hypnotically beautiful romantic melodrama thanks to the sheer magic of its two lead actors. In his first major film role - as the pious Prince Myshkin - Gerard Philippe radiates the most sexualised saintliness you are ever likely to see on screen. As Natasha Filipevna, the doomed courtesan he falls in love with, Edwige Feuillere is at once meltingly sensual and hard-as-nails - a romantic dominatrix in luscious Escoffier gowns, who falls victim to her own finer instincts.

Mind you, I've no idea how this film will play to fans of Dostoevsky. (Personally, I have always loathed his work, finding it an exercise in boring pseudo-spiritual navel-gazing.) Yet for the same crowd of doomed romantics who adored Garbo in Anna Karenina or Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago (and may not give a toss for Tolstoy or Pasternak) this is one film to track down at all costs. Admirers of 'deep' Russian fiction will most likely be apoplectic, but don't they all just love to be miserable anyway?

Gérard Philipe, in his first screen role, plays an impoverished Russian aristocrat with an angelic face and a kind heart who is condemned to tell the truth in a tsarist society whose corruption won't allow it. He is a saintly figure. Unfortunately, far from performing miracles, his innate frankness tends to make things worse for everyone around him after confronting them with their inner failures. This film boasts incredible production values (costumes by Escoffier, sets by Bakst) and some of the finest dialog of any French movie (by Charles Spaak). Even Maurice Thiriet's idiosyncratic music manages to sound Russian at times. The film's elliptical retelling of the Dostoeivski novel (in 91 compact minutes) cannot be outdone for sheer intelligent and elegant movie-making. The actors, down to the last bit part (Marguerite Moreno, Sylvie, Debucourt, Chambreuil), are superb and would have made a retelling of "The Three Little Pigs" just as fascinating: Philipe as an unstoppable El Cid figure out of his element is halfway between Don Quichotte and Paphnuce (in Anatole France's "Thaïs") and already reveals his genius; Edwige Feuillère has never been more expressive, magical and mysterious; Lucien Coëdel and Nathalie Nattier might as well have been born for their respective parts since this is one of their too few screen appearances. I just saw this film again on Ontario's French channel, TFO, tonight. It deserves to be restored and made generally available on DVD. If only to show the world what actors there were on this planet before Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio took over.

I saw this film 1947 . all I remember a few very impressive close- ups. by the time i read the book (twice) the film completely was forgotten. all i have left is the 11x14 german language 4 page film- program.the photography is outstanding. I would like to see this film again,but do not know if a video is available.

A film who must see twice. first - as adaptation of Dostoievski masterpiece. twice - for Gerard Philipe performance, for music, costumes, the French translation in image and its essence of a so Russian story. because it is not exactly a simple/good/inspired adaptation . but a hommage. Philipe keeps the flavor of the roles who will come and his Myshkin is fascinating - vulnerable, naive, realistic and moving in close - up scenes. it is a splendid demonstration of the force of huge artistic potential. but the special gift of this adaptation, precise presentation of novel line, is the science to propose to its public to read/discover again, the novel. and to remind the air of a lost period, so seductive . and so near by ideal.