Crime and punishment

Director: Dmitry Svetozarov

Screen version of a novel of F.M. Dostoevsky
eight-serial TV feature film

Producer: Dmitry Svetozarov
Script writer: Michael Smolianicki

Shootings September-October 2006.

From the interview with producer, Dmitry Svetozarov

…Why have I started a screen version of Dostoevsky’s novel? First of all, it is an opportunity; from the point of view of an inner production analyzer, to appreciate the work with the classic and its true value. Secondly, a desire to lock in an image of outgoing Saint-Petersburg. Now we are at the peak of our spade-work – a retrieval of a model. I understood that “Crime and punishment” is a novel about man’s life, persecuted by this life into a dead end. That is why the interiors in the novel – rooms, are similar to a coffin, the house of Marmeladov, consisted of small rooms with no windows, where there is a lack of air and space…Retrievals of slots, probably is not coinciding with the novel’s topography, probably in absolutely opposite places, but in its spirit, in my opinion, it is closer to the Dostoevsky’s novel rather than indicated in the novel’s address with standard architectural images.

When I got down to the idea of a screen version of “Crime and Punishment”, I had a perception that I have no right for author’s interpretation of this material. In my full opinion, TV became the only intermediary between a book and a reader, between classics and the audience, regrettably only a small part of our future audience is aware of the detailed substance of novel. Understanding that, seeing my serial, the viewer receives a first and a final conception, what is Dostoevsky’s novel, our film will be as close as it is possible to those meanings, which were put by Dostoevsky.

…The work is extremely interesting because it implies research: I was obligated to read or re-read a huge amount of books about F.M. Dostoevsky. I was trying to understand what he had in mind, not from the point of view of the intention, because he was canonical, but from the point of view of the smallest details, from the colour spectrum in novel, where prevails yellow to the finest details of the persons appearance, their costumes and words.
I call this authenticity.

…When I invited Alexander Baluev to the role of Svidrigailev, I was guided by the incredible coincidence of his appearance with a description of the persons image in Dostoevsky’s novel: a healthy, blue eyed, russian merchant with a broad and thick beard. The same is about the actress Elena Iakovleva: her heroine Pulheria Raskolnikova, Rodion’s mother isn’t an ancient granny in a night cap, she is a woman of 40 years old.

The role of Rodion Raskolnikov – a film debut for an actor from Saint-Petersburg Vladimir Koshevoi. And here we chased the same aim, firstly, the appearance. By description in the novel, Raskolnikov has an appearance of a romantic person. In his slender, aquiline profile you can find characters of French novels of Stendhal, Balzac, and Hugo. This is no coincidence, because Dostoevsky was impressed by French literature, as well as the story of Victor Hugo, “The last day of a condemned man”.

CAST

• Vladimir Koshevoy (Rodion Raskolnikov)
• Polina Filonenko (Sonechka Marmeladova)
• Elena Yakovleva (Pulkheria Ivanovna)
• Andrey Panin (Porfiriy Petrovich)
• Alexander Baluyev (Svidrigaylov)