Raskolnikoff

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.

You will have an awful time with the Oldies.com version of this very rare film. Most scenes simply disappear into over-contrasty red-tinged sepia. It's so bad at times that you can't even make out people's expressions. Most of the scenery gets lost in the darkness.

That's too bad, because this movie does confirm several things about Robert Wiene: First that he was a mediocre director and that The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari was just a fluke, and second that he was a master of both composing and filming expressionistic set design. By the time this film was made, both modern plot devices and the "flow" of silent films were already several years in place. This means that the average viewer would be able to follow both the action and the inter title cards, and that from one scene to the next the film would have a logical progression.

This film doesn't do that. It's really hard to follow what's going on as there is virtually no continuity of either scene or plot. The characters tend to be assembled and encouraged to grandstand in front of the camera, without regard to how things are moving along elsewhere in the story. It seems as if there's no "head" here, as if no one read or understood the script. Certainly the actors weren't coached that way. In modern times, we'd call that an amateur director. You can't even make the excuse that this problem is from the time period, or is "expressionistic acting". Not with Murnau and Lang operating in the same time period. This sort of thing may have worked on "Caligari", it simply doesn't work here. The story line is way too conventional for "shots in the viewer's face", and its director should have known that.

On the other hand, the set design is amazing, simply incredible, mind boggling good. It's as if they tried to reproduce the look of "Caligari" on a much larger budget. The multi-level 3D expressionistic sets must have been very impressive. Too bad you can't actually see them due to the poor print on this DVD.

I went to the Murnau Stiftung in Wiesbaden Germany a number of years ago. The only complete print of this film is being held in Munich. Someone should get to it and release this film in better quality. At least you could spend your time marveling at the sets.

Doinker

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's classic novel "Crime And Punsihment" (actually, the on-screen title here) has been filmed some 28 times over the years, but this is only the second adaptation I have watched after Josef von Sternberg's fine 1935 version (which I had checked out in 2009 in order to commemorate the 105th anniversary of star Peter Lorre's birth)…and, in fact, this viewing is part of my ongoing Sternberg retrospective as I have opted to include a trio of titles (one of them yet another "Crime And Punishment" rendition!) that were based on source material he would tackle himself.

Being helmed by the director of that textbook film classic of German Expressionist technique THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920), this is very much in the same (remarkable and stimulating) vein of painted sets and distorted perspective. For the record, I am also familiar with Wiene's work via THE HANDS OF ORLAC (1924) – another perennial whose U.S. remake would also feature Peter Lorre! – and the surviving condensed version of GENUINE: THE TALE OF A VAMPIRE (1920). Incidentally, I had always been intrigued by a solitary still from RASKOLNIKOV in a movie-related (called, appropriately enough, "The Movie"!) British periodical from the early 1980s, but was more or less resigned to never being able to catch the real thing – even if a long time afterwards, I am certainly happy now to have been proved wrong in this regard!

To begin with, the credits for this one are fairly hyperbolic: not only is the fact that the cast emanates from "The Moscow Arts Theater" mentioned twice (in hindsight, the protagonist registers as a satisfactorily brooding presence), but there is even a quite unique recommendation by the National Board Of Review stating that the feature presentation is "An Exceptional Film"! As was the case with the Sternberg picture, the most notable acting is done by the student assassin protagonist (the titular figure) and the Police official who hounds him (his suspicion borne from a passage in the former's own graduation thesis – where he opines that an extraordinary person has the right to commit a crime and not be punished for it, especially if this would ultimately benefit mankind!). Again, too, Raskolnikov's confession occurs mainly due to the insistent pleas of the girl he loves (daughter of a bureaucrat-turned-drunkard whose constant squandering has driven her to prostitution and his wife, gradually, off-the-wall!) – in this case, however, it is somewhat overstated as the hero attains what is best described as "religious mania" (though, interestingly enough, the same 'affliction' is attributed to the painter initially accused of the deed and who eventually takes his own life)!

The double slaying (of a vile female pawnbroker – shown in hallucinations towering over a multitude of despairing clients – and her sister who just happens upon the scene) itself is rather skimped, despite the fact that Wiene takes care beforehand to have Raskolnikov sew an extra pocket inside his jacket where he can hide the murder weapon (an axe) and even shows him first stealing and, subsequently, restoring it! At any rate, typically for a Silent of this vintage and style, the film is sluggishly-paced (by the way, the comprehensive green-tinting does occasionally obscure the detail from an already faded and battered print!) – but, for various reasons, remains full of interest throughout its 87-minute duration (for what it is worth, this is essentially the same as Sternberg's version, whereas others would take the two-part or even TV mini-series route!).