I've been trying to figure out what makes "The Brothers Karamazov" a great tale while similar fat books -- and the movies made from them -- turn into kitsch or historical curiosities. Years ago I read Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind," a story of love, intrigue, conflict, money, and social status. It's an epic, despite its vulgarity and its repulsive sentiment. But, like "The Brothers Karamazov," it's a big fat book with a gripping narrative.
I think the difference may lie in the way the characters are limned in. Everyone in "Gone With the Wind" is bigger than life, but they're not very real. They're animated points of view. The characters may or may not be lovable but they're uniformly dumb. The only person who learns anything is Rhett Butler, and only at the very end.
In "The Brothers Karamazov", the characters are inconsistent, the way people are in life. Fyodor, the dissolute semi-father, is usually drunk and given to orgies, even with his wife in the house. Yet, at a meeting with the Holy Elder, he's so awed by the Monk's humility that he's struck speechless. And he has mercurial bonds with his sons. Mostly he never thinks of them but, from time to time, he weeps with affection for them.
The story is deeper, too, than that of Mitchell's novel. "Gone With the Wind" is the story of Scarlett O'Hara. "The Brothers Karamazov" is the story of a struggle within a family and a relationship with God that resembles that between Fyodor and his sons. It has to do with guilt, a universal source of human distress. (Where is the guilt in "Gone With the Wind"? Nowhere. Shame and depression, but no guilt.)
This particular rendering of Dostoyevsky's novel must have been shot on a low budget. The color is washed out and the musical score sounds like something from a cheap Italian grindhouse movie. Most of it takes place indoors and with a bit of imagination it could easily have been turned into a theatrical production. The director, though, has incorporated some striking visuals. Check out the opening credits. The screen looks like some abstract painting until we finally hear boots crunching through snow and a line of gray-coated men shuffling across the screen.
The small budget makes it possible, or even necessary, for indoor conversations about human conundrums to be left more or less intact. There aren't any wild horse races, as there are in the Hollywood version. The performances here are adequate, not much more than that. Many people made fun of Yul Brynner in the American film, I think mainly because shaved heads were so uncommon. In one of his novels, Anthony Burgess ridiculed a Yul Brynner figure known as "the Bald Adonis of Greater London." But Brynner brings a frenzied intensity to the role of Dmitri that Sergey Gorobchenko lacks. As the youngest and most virtuous son, Alyosha, Aleksandr Golubev is a little more convincing than William Shatner was in 1965. Shatner was young and handsome and properly dressed and groomed but he could never help looking a little SLY.
This is an inexpensive movie but not a bad one. It's just long and it lacks color. It's in no way an insult to the writer or the viewer. And the final line is not some banality like, "I'll cry tomorrow."
I think the difference may lie in the way the characters are limned in. Everyone in "Gone With the Wind" is bigger than life, but they're not very real. They're animated points of view. The characters may or may not be lovable but they're uniformly dumb. The only person who learns anything is Rhett Butler, and only at the very end.
In "The Brothers Karamazov", the characters are inconsistent, the way people are in life. Fyodor, the dissolute semi-father, is usually drunk and given to orgies, even with his wife in the house. Yet, at a meeting with the Holy Elder, he's so awed by the Monk's humility that he's struck speechless. And he has mercurial bonds with his sons. Mostly he never thinks of them but, from time to time, he weeps with affection for them.
The story is deeper, too, than that of Mitchell's novel. "Gone With the Wind" is the story of Scarlett O'Hara. "The Brothers Karamazov" is the story of a struggle within a family and a relationship with God that resembles that between Fyodor and his sons. It has to do with guilt, a universal source of human distress. (Where is the guilt in "Gone With the Wind"? Nowhere. Shame and depression, but no guilt.)
This particular rendering of Dostoyevsky's novel must have been shot on a low budget. The color is washed out and the musical score sounds like something from a cheap Italian grindhouse movie. Most of it takes place indoors and with a bit of imagination it could easily have been turned into a theatrical production. The director, though, has incorporated some striking visuals. Check out the opening credits. The screen looks like some abstract painting until we finally hear boots crunching through snow and a line of gray-coated men shuffling across the screen.
The small budget makes it possible, or even necessary, for indoor conversations about human conundrums to be left more or less intact. There aren't any wild horse races, as there are in the Hollywood version. The performances here are adequate, not much more than that. Many people made fun of Yul Brynner in the American film, I think mainly because shaved heads were so uncommon. In one of his novels, Anthony Burgess ridiculed a Yul Brynner figure known as "the Bald Adonis of Greater London." But Brynner brings a frenzied intensity to the role of Dmitri that Sergey Gorobchenko lacks. As the youngest and most virtuous son, Alyosha, Aleksandr Golubev is a little more convincing than William Shatner was in 1965. Shatner was young and handsome and properly dressed and groomed but he could never help looking a little SLY.
This is an inexpensive movie but not a bad one. It's just long and it lacks color. It's in no way an insult to the writer or the viewer. And the final line is not some banality like, "I'll cry tomorrow."