Bresson and Dostoyevsky

[blindside8zao]

I am about to embark on a large study of Dostoyevsky and had read on the fyodordostoevsky.com site forum that Bresson's films were influenced by D. Some said pickpocket was an adaptation of Crime and Punishment and that Au Hasard Balthazar was an adaptation of The Idiot.

Does anyone here know to what extent this is correct?

Also, they mentioned Kurosawa?

I should have mentioned I haven't seen any Bresson.

[denti alligator]

Au Hasard Balthazar was an adaptation of The Idiot.

The donkey is Prince Myshkin?

[Michael Kerpan]

In "Idiot" -- the Prince tells a lengthy (and sad but touching) story about a girl (Marie) who was seduced and abandoned (and rejected by all the good people of the town)-- but was then protected by the children, as she grew sicker and sicker...

The Prince also talks about how he had felt dead in switzerland -- until the early morning braying oif a donkey had brought him back to life.

[justeleblanc]

Adaptation seems like a strong word and I don't quite buy that argument yet.

[Michael Kerpan]

Adaptation is definitely too strong a word. But it is impossible to read this portion of Idiot without sensing that it served as an inspiration for Bresson's AHB.

[Gregory]

Bresson's A Gentle Woman is an adaptation of a Dostoyevsky short story. Also, his Four Nights of a Dreamer is based on Dostoyevsky's White Nights.

[Mr Sausage]

Also, they mentioned Kurosawa?

Kurosawa did an adaptation of The Idiot, of the same name I believe, in 1951. It was right in the midst of his great period, but is generally agreed upon as a lesser Kurosawa film. Dostoevsky was his favourite writer by all accounts.

Here is a brief synopsis of it by Donald Richie from his book 100 Years of Japanese Film:

Idiot, The (Hakuchi, 1951). Kurosawa Akira. the director adapts his favorite novelist, Dostoevsky. St. Petersburg becomes modern Hokkaido, and the Russians become provincial Japanese. A wildly uneven film to begin with, it was further damaged by Shochiku's cutting its running time nearly in half prior to its release. Still there is a certain charm in seeing Mori Masayuki (the nobleman in Rashomon, company president in The Bad Sleep Well) as Prince Myshkin, and in watching all the rest (Mifune Toshiro, Hara Setsuko) overact. 165 minutes. VHS, New Yorker films.

As a side note, I adore Kurosawa, but I don't much care for Dostoevsky, which always seemed strange to me. But then Kurosawa seems the more sensitive of the two, and is individual enough to support this sort of thing.

[Andre Jurieu]

Some said pickpocket was an adaptation of Crime and Punishment ...

I would say Pickpocket was definitely influenced by Crime and Punishment (as was L'Enfant). Once you watch the film the connection is fairly obvious.

[Michael Kerpan]

Kurosawa did an adaptation of The Idiot, of the same name I believe, in 1951. It was right in the midst of his great period, but is generally agreed upon as a lesser Kurosawa film. Dostoevsky was his favourite writer by all accounts.

Not agreed upon by ME. I consider Idiot one of Kurosawa's very best works. ;~}

[Awesome Welles]

Some said pickpocket was an adaptation of Crime and Punishment ...

I would say Pickpocket was definitely influenced by Crime and Punishment (as was L'Enfant). Once you watch the film the connection is fairly obvious.

I would agree that Pickpocket was influenced by Crime and Punishment, I think the key word here is influence, Bresson takes as his subject matter the guilt that is experienced by Raskolnikov and the exploration of this guilt is the subject matter of Bresson's film. How the guilt affects the person. But I fail to see how, in any way, L'Enfant is influenced by Crime and Punishment...?

[David Ehrenstein]

I should have mentioned I haven't seen any Bresson.

Good grief!

Well you certainly have a lot of work cut out for you. Rewarding work, but tough.

BTW, are you familiar with other film adaptations of Dostoyevsky?

[Greathinker]

I should have mentioned I haven't seen any Bresson.

BTW, are you familiar with other film adaptations of Dostoyevsky?

Are there many film adaptations, as opposed to obvious influences? I don't know of any, though I've heard there's one of The Brothers Karamazov.

[MichaelB]

I should have mentioned I haven't seen any Bresson.

BTW, are you familiar with other film adaptations of Dostoyevsky?

Are there many film adaptations, as opposed to obvious influences? I don't know of any, though I've heard there's one of The Brothers Karamazov.

It's not a patch on the novel, but I enjoyed the 1969 four-hour Soviet version more than I expected to. Being shot in St Petersburg helped enormously.

[GringoTex]

Four new articles on Bresson from Senses of Cinema:

Robert Bresson and Flannery O'Connor: Unlikely Approaches Toward Grace

Going Beyond Cézanne: The Development of Robert Bresson's Film Style in esponse to the Painting of Paul Cézanne

A Man Escaped

Sins of Omission: A Dissenting View of Robert Bresson

[Via_Chicago]

Sternberg's Crime and Punishment also from 1935. While regarded as a "mistake" by some, dont think for a moment Sternberg's Baudelarian sensibility can't make something great out of Dostoyevsky. I personally love the casting of Lorre as Raskolnikov and especially Edward Arnold as Porphiry (far stronger than even Harry Baur as the latter in the Chenal version.) This used to be available on a quite good VHS although it hasnt screened anywhere much for years (alas owned by Columbia/Sony.)

Sony does appear to loan a 35mm archival print (that appears restored) to non-platter theatres.

[Kenji]

I'm in agreement with Michael Kerpan on Kurosawa's The Idiot, by the way- certainly one of the director's most interesting and underrated films.

[blindside8zao]

I'm a big Bresson fan now, at least from the three Criterion Bresson's I've got. The Idiot really does seem to be something entirely new but I think Pickpocket is a good case for adaptation, although something very new and different.


I really like to compare the way I feel at the end of Crime and Punishment with what Bresson does at the end of Pickpocket. The introduction on the Criterion disc speaks about the huge difference between the whole film and the ending. Everything is slightly off for the whole film, in that way that Bresson has, but at the end melodrama rushes in, as if he's been holding his breath for the first 98 percent of the movie and then exhaling. However, at the end of Crime and Punishment I feel cheated, almost like the happy ending was just tacked on. Compared to the despair of the first part of the book the ending just doesn't seem to work. It's almost like Bresson felt the dramatic difference and did something different with it.

[Der Müde Tod]

(...) However, at the end of Crime and Punishment I feel cheated, almost like the happy ending was just tacked on. Compared to the despair of the first part of the book the ending just doesn't seem to work. It's almost like Bresson felt the dramatic difference and did something different with it.

You are in good company. Many philosophers and writers of the 20th century felt that the ending of C&P was unsatisfactory.
Camus' Stranger, Doeblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz and other famous books are all attempting to resolve this problem in some other way. Many adaptations of C&P to film attempt the same. One of the most honest adaptations in this respect is Aki Kaurismäki's which leaves the end open.

[blindside8zao]

all the same, the whole of the brothers karamzoff feels so much more honest to me, and quite frankly, very uplifting.