Raskolnikow (1923)
Raskolnikow (1923)
„Raskolnikow“ is a 1923 silent drama film directed by Robert Wiene. The film is an adaptation of the 1866 novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
In this nightmare-ish, avant-garde, experimental, psychological drama, a student, Raskolnikow, has written an article about laws and crime. In his thesis, he proposes that un-ordinary people can commit crimes if their actions are necessary for the benefit of mankind.
Raskolnikow murders an old woman, who operates a crooked loaning house, as well as her sister, who made the mistake of visiting her at the wrong time. Raskolnikow is suspected of the crime, but somebody else confesses to the murder.
Meanwhile, Raskolnikow has fallen in love with Sonja, the street-walking daughter of an ex-official, Marmeladow, who was fired because of drinking.
Raskolnikow’s sister is engaged with an arrogant official, who dislikes him, because Raskolnikow gave Sonja 25 Rubel for her father’s funeral. When Raskolnikow tells him his opinion of his behaviour against the poor, he tries to show he’s a good guy also to the public and showing that Sonja is also a thief at the same time by framing her of a theft of 100 Rubels.
But after this, Raskolnikow finds out that Sonja was a very close friend of his second victim.
A 1923 German Black & White silent drama film directed by Robert Wiene, produced by Hans Neumann and Wiene, screenplay by Wiene, based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel „Crime and Punishment“ (1866), cinematography by Willy Goldberger, starring Gregori Chmara, Elisaweta Skulskaja, Alla Tarasova, Andrei Zhilinsk, Mikhail Tarkhanov, Mariya Germanova, Maria Kryshanovskaya, Pavel Pavlov, Toma, Petr Sharov, and Ivan Bersenev.
By the time this film was made, both modern plot devices and the „flow“ of silent films had been in place for several years. This means that the average viewer was 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.
A master of both composing and filming expressionistic set design, Weine helms here with the same (remarkable and stimulating) technique of painted sets and distorted perspective that he used in „The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari“ (1920). It’s not as pervasive as in that movie, but it’s noticeably there, especially in the scenes in the building where the murder takes place. Both films had a deep influence on the German cinema of that time.
Robert Wiene (1873 – 1938) was a German film director, screenwriter and producer, active during the silent era. Wiene was born in Breslau, in the German Province of Silesia (now the city of Wrocław in Poland), as the elder son of the successful theatre actor Karl Wiene. His younger brother Conrad also became an actor. Wiene spent his childhood in various cities throughout Central and Western Europe, including Vienna, Stuttgart, Dresden and Prague. He is widely-known for directing the landmark film „The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari“ (1920), and a succession of other expressionist films. Wiene also directed a variety of other films of varying styles and genres. Following the Nazi rise to power in Germany, Wiene, who was of Jewish descent, fled into exile. Prior to his directing career, Wiene studied law at the University of Berlin and the University of Vienna. He practiced law in Weimar until 1908, when he moved back to Vienna to manage a theatre company. During this time, he also acted, in small parts on the stage. His first involvement with film was in 1912, writing and directing „Die Waffen der Jugend“. In 1919, he co-founded with Heinz Hanus the Filmbund (Film Union), a professional association of Austrian filmmakers and one of the first organizations of its kind in Europe. Four months after the Nazis took power, Wiene’s latest film, „Taifun“, was banned on May 3, 1933. A Hungarian film company had been inviting German directors to come to Budapest to make films in simultaneous German/Hungarian versions, and given his uncertain career prospects under the new German regime Wiene took up that offer in September to direct „One Night in Venice“ (1934). Wiene went later to London, and finally to Paris where together with Jean Cocteau he tried to produce a sound remake of „The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari“ (1920). Wiene never returned to Germany. Only about 20 of the more than 90 movies in which Robert Wiene collaborated still exist.
In a retrospective review by Tim Pulleine in the Monthly Film Bulletin that the film was „a conventional prestige opus of the day. (The dramatisation of the novel) was tolerably effective, barring a few lapses into excessive histrionics (Marmeladov’s expiatory confession of alcoholism might have looked extreme in a temperance melodrama)...the most basic problem is that the set designs create a rebarbative dichotomy within the film, since-apart perhaps from the sequences taking place on the stairway leading up to a pawnbroker’s flat-the performers are not spatially integrated into the settings but remain obstinately on a separate plane of stylization.“
Cast:
- Gregori Chmara – Rodion Raskolnikow
- Elisabeta Skulskaja – Mother of Rodion Raskolnikow
- Alla Tarasova – Sister of Rodion Raskolnikow
- Andrei Zhilinsky – Rasumichin
- Mikhail Tarkhanov – Marmeladow
- Mariya Germanova – Wife of Marmeladow
- Maria Kryshanovskaya – Sonja, daughter of Marmeladow
- Pavel Pavlov – investigating judge
- Toma – Alona Iwanowa, the usurer
- Petr Sharov – Swidrigailow
- Ivan Bersenev – a member of the petite bourgeoisie