Crime et châtiment

1935 Drama

Credits

Director: Pierre Chenal
Script: Marcel Aymé, Pierre Chenal, Christian Stengel, Vladimir Strizhevsky, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (novel)
Photo: Joseph-Louis Mundwiller
Music: Arthur Honegger
Cast: Harry Baur (Porphyre), Pierre Blanchar (Raskolnikov), Madeleine Ozeray (Sonia), Lucienne Le Marchand (Dounia), Sylvie (Catherine Ivanova), Magdeleine Bérubet (Aliona), Aimé Clariond (Loujine), Marcel Delaître (Marmeladov), Georges Douking (Nicolas), Paulette Elambert (Polia), Marcelle Géniat (Mme Raskolnikov), Claire Gérard (Nastassia), Catherine Hessling (Elisabeth), Alexandre Rignault (Razoumikhine)
Country: France
Language: French
Runtime: 107 min; B&W
Aka: Crime and Punishment

Summary

A young Russian student, Raskolnikov, believes that the intellectual classes are morally superior to ordinary working class people. To prove his point, he brutally kills an old shopkeeper, believing that the act will leave his conscience unscathed. He is wrong. Guilt soon takes him over and compels him to surrender himself to his police pursuer, Porphyre. In jail, he realises that the path to redemption will be a long and painful one to traverse...

Review

The best film adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s classic novel is almost certainly this 1935 work from acclaimed French film director Pierre Chenal. Intense acting performances from Harry Baur and Pierre Blanchar (two giants of French cinema in the 1930s and 1940s) make this a compelling work, which is made all the more atmospheric by the dark moody sets and cinematography, very redolent of pre-WWII European expressionism.

© James Travers 2003

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