A German Early Sound Adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov

      From 1931, Der Mörder Dimitri Karamasoff (The Murderer Dimitri Karamasoff), made in Germany by the Russian director Fyodor Otsep (Fjodor Ozep in the credits) stands out for several reasons: superb musical score by Karol Rathaus, cinematography by Friedl Behn-Grund, acting by the two leads, Fritz Kortner and Anna Sten, and editing by Otsep and Hans von Passavant.

     Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1880 novel, The Brothers Karamazov, the film pares down the story, I presume (I haven't read it, but it's a thick book), concentrating on Lieutenant Dimitri Karamasoff, his falling in love with Grushenka (also desired by Dimitri's father), and his headstrong attempt to commit patricide in order to secure the woman for himself.

     Fritz Kortner's bullish performance depicts a man who takes what he wants.  He has the movements of a caged dog impatient to walk and breathe fresh air.  

     Anna Sten's Grushenka comes across as a courtesan-type; soft on the outside but manipulative.  Old Man Karamasoff has high hopes for a woman who barely gives him any time, keeps him waiting endlessly.  He leaves a packet of money for her behind an icon of the Virgin Mary.  Smerdjakoff (Fritz Rasp in a sinister performance), as the Old Man's illegitimate son, thus, one of the Brothers, steals the money and does the actual murder, letting his half-brother Dimitri take the blame.  

     Since I haven't read the famous novel, I can't deal with its complex story here.  I don't know how faithful the film is to the original.  The movie works, though, quite well.  For its time, the early 1930s, it exhibits a liquidity of motion startling to see, considering the bulk of cameras in the first years of the sound era.  A party scene featuring gypsies in what may be a brothel has the camera moving around as if handheld.  There's also a long and complex single take shot following Dimitri as he searches the place for Grushenka.  Fyodor Otsep, the director, seems to have explored some cinematographic territory later associated with Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.

     In editing, too, the dynamism of Otsep's style constitutes a knockout to the typical static sets of Hollywood films of the same period.  Maybe so many early Hollywood sound films were theatrical and stagey because the filmmakers were unwilling to get burly grips to move them about as Otsep seems to have done.

     A beautifully made film, although perhaps just hinting at the celebrated greatness of Dostoevsky's novel.  As cinema, though, it's alive and innovative, reflecting the creativeness of other Russian directors (Eisenstein, Pudovkin) during the early years of the Soviet state, when artists there had some leeway in experimentation; before Josef Stalin changed his mind and began reining them in.

Vic Neptune