Dostoevsky and Expressionism
This silent adaptation from Weimar Germany of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" is so conceptually brilliant that the execution seems secondary (which is rather fortunate given the poor-quality prints of the film in circulation), although there's plenty to admire in this latter regard as well. Dostoevsky's book was remarkable in its time for a god-like third-person omniscient narration that pierced the mind and inner torment of its characters--primarily, the protagonist Raskolnikov--even in a somewhat proto-stream-of-consciousness style. This poses a problem for cinematic adaptation. In a talkie, one could resort to voiceover narration, but what to do for a silent picture? Cluttering it with intertitles would defeat the purpose of film being fundamentally different than literature. Here, instead, the soul of Raskolnikov is reflected in the production design, which is Expressionist--an art movement that is all about depicting the world from a subjective perspective.
Contrary to some popular misconceptions bolstered by Lotte Eisener's misleading film history "The Haunted Screen," more recent scholarship indicates that there weren't very many truly Expressionist films made in Germany during the silent era. There may be an expressionistic design here or there in this or that Lang or Murnau production, but they weren't Expressionist filmmakers, and dutch angles or low-key lighting are hardly exclusive to any one genre or style. A misapprehension otherwise results in a false equivalence between, say, the Expressionist "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920) and the naturalistic adaptation of supernatural Gothic horror "Nosferatu" (1922) and renders the term meaningless by conflating everything from Universal monster movies to film noir and Tim Burton. Film historian Barry Salt went as far as to mainly limit Expressionist cinema to a five-year span in Germany from 1920 to 1924 and only cites six or seven such films from it. Three of them are from the same director, the most prominent proponent of cinematic Expressionism, Robert Wiene, maker of "Caligari," "Genuine" (1920) and this, "Raskolnikow."
While "Caligari" deserves to be recognized for its influence and precedence, "Raskolnikow" is arguably a superior integration of design and narrative in respect to its decidedly Expressionist elements. Instead of the theatrical painted backdrops of "Caligari," here we get robust, tactile and fully three-dimensional spaces with stagings in depth. Camera positions and cutting are more varied. Low-key and other lighting effects aren't merely painted onto stage flats. These are distorted visions of places characters could conceivably inhabit, albeit uneasily, beyond an encountered performance observed from the proscenium arch. Part of this is the focus on staircases seemingly characteristic of much of Weimar cinema, but especially appropriate here given the literary source. Uli Jung and Walter Schatzberg (in their book "Beyond Caligari: The Films of Robert Wiene") and John D. Barlow (in his book "German Expressionist Film") make special mention of the deep focus in the restaurant scene. I also especially love in this case the inclusion from the novel of painters in another room in the pawnbroker's tenement. It's as though they're putting the finishing touches on this deranged architecture as the picture of Raskolnikov's mind unfolds.
The actors from the Moscow Art Theatre, who practiced the method of Konstantin Stanislavski, do well for the era, and their acting is appropriate given the emotional intensity of the original novel and its Expressionist treatment. Grigori Chmara is especially good in the film's redoubled focus on Rodion Raskolnikov, including many close-ups on him. And, in addition to the jagged edges, misaligned contours and shadowy depths of the sets as unsoundly constructed as the protagonist's intellect, the film features some subjective camerawork and effects, such as blurring images during his fainting at the police station and multiple-exposure photography for fevered nightmares. Someday, I hope a restored print, such as the one from the Netherlands archive mentioned in "Beyond Caligari," which is said to approach the film's original length, becomes more accessible. Because "Raskolnikow" is a thoroughly integrated piece of art.
Contrary to some popular misconceptions bolstered by Lotte Eisener's misleading film history "The Haunted Screen," more recent scholarship indicates that there weren't very many truly Expressionist films made in Germany during the silent era. There may be an expressionistic design here or there in this or that Lang or Murnau production, but they weren't Expressionist filmmakers, and dutch angles or low-key lighting are hardly exclusive to any one genre or style. A misapprehension otherwise results in a false equivalence between, say, the Expressionist "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920) and the naturalistic adaptation of supernatural Gothic horror "Nosferatu" (1922) and renders the term meaningless by conflating everything from Universal monster movies to film noir and Tim Burton. Film historian Barry Salt went as far as to mainly limit Expressionist cinema to a five-year span in Germany from 1920 to 1924 and only cites six or seven such films from it. Three of them are from the same director, the most prominent proponent of cinematic Expressionism, Robert Wiene, maker of "Caligari," "Genuine" (1920) and this, "Raskolnikow."
While "Caligari" deserves to be recognized for its influence and precedence, "Raskolnikow" is arguably a superior integration of design and narrative in respect to its decidedly Expressionist elements. Instead of the theatrical painted backdrops of "Caligari," here we get robust, tactile and fully three-dimensional spaces with stagings in depth. Camera positions and cutting are more varied. Low-key and other lighting effects aren't merely painted onto stage flats. These are distorted visions of places characters could conceivably inhabit, albeit uneasily, beyond an encountered performance observed from the proscenium arch. Part of this is the focus on staircases seemingly characteristic of much of Weimar cinema, but especially appropriate here given the literary source. Uli Jung and Walter Schatzberg (in their book "Beyond Caligari: The Films of Robert Wiene") and John D. Barlow (in his book "German Expressionist Film") make special mention of the deep focus in the restaurant scene. I also especially love in this case the inclusion from the novel of painters in another room in the pawnbroker's tenement. It's as though they're putting the finishing touches on this deranged architecture as the picture of Raskolnikov's mind unfolds.
The actors from the Moscow Art Theatre, who practiced the method of Konstantin Stanislavski, do well for the era, and their acting is appropriate given the emotional intensity of the original novel and its Expressionist treatment. Grigori Chmara is especially good in the film's redoubled focus on Rodion Raskolnikov, including many close-ups on him. And, in addition to the jagged edges, misaligned contours and shadowy depths of the sets as unsoundly constructed as the protagonist's intellect, the film features some subjective camerawork and effects, such as blurring images during his fainting at the police station and multiple-exposure photography for fevered nightmares. Someday, I hope a restored print, such as the one from the Netherlands archive mentioned in "Beyond Caligari," which is said to approach the film's original length, becomes more accessible. Because "Raskolnikow" is a thoroughly integrated piece of art.
- Cineanalyst
- 25 set 2019