Bratya Karamazovy (1969)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Directors:

Kirill Lavrov
Ivan Pyryev

Writers:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (novel) and
Ivan Pyryev (writer)

Release Date:

12 July 1969 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Three brothers, one spiritual and living at a monastary, one a gambler, and one an intellectual, work out their problems in 19th century Russia.

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel | Character Name In Title

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Mikhail Ulyanov	...	Dmitri
Lionella Pyryeva	...	Grushenka
Kirill Lavrov	...	Ivan
Andrei Miagkov	...	Alyosha
Mark Prudkin	...	Fyodor Pavlovich
Svetlana Korkoshko	...	Yekaterina Ivanovna
Valentin Nikulin	...	Smerdyakov
Pavel Pavlenko	...	Zosima
Andrei Abrikosov	...	Samsonov
Gennadi Yukhtin	...	Father Paisi
Anatoli Adoskin	...	Examining magistrate
Rada Volshaninova	...	Gipsy
Tamara Nosova	...	Marya Kondratyevna
Nikita Podgornyj	...	Rakitin
Ivan Lapikov	...	Lyagavyj

Also Known As:

Братья Карамазовы (Soviet Union: Russian title)
The Brothers Karamazov

Runtime:

232 min

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Color:

Color (Sovcolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16

Company:

Mosfilm

Movie Connections:

Version of "O Julgamento" (1976)

Classic Russian adaptation.

In a period where Russian film making was not distinguished, their classics adaptations were the peak achievements. Apparently the one film by Bolshoi dignitary Lavrov, who also plays Ivan, this Dostoievsky production makes a stagey first impression, not unlike co-director Pyryev's version of THE IDIOT, but this is a much better film.

Concepts like Lavrov's assertion, in the presence of the priests, that morality is a product of immortality or Dimitri's claim that Korkoshko has never forgiven him for proving more ethical than herself, when he refused to take advantage of her need for money, are set up in the best printed page tradition and then elaborated in a way that we are not used to seeing in film, even those drawing on their connection with serious literature. The film form does rise to demands like the gypsy singer party or the diabolical illusion but these are not the highlights. The work's strength is in putting on screen ideas and states of mind most makers would find too demanding.

Not blessed with subtlety and in fuzzy Sov Colour, visual trimmings are minimal - ducks splashing in a pond, singing monks, a windmill distant in the fog. The weight of the piece is carried by the distinctive cast performing the Dostoievski text full blast.

Respectable versions like the Fritz Kortner or Yul Bryner films, that try to compress the piece into normal feature length, are obliterated in any comparison.