Film Review
1958 marked the highpoint of Richard Brooks' career as a film director,
as it saw the release of two of his most ambitious and personally
demanding films,
The Brothers
Karamazov and
Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof. Both films are big budget adaptations of a major
literary work, the first the universally acclaimed magnum opus by
Fyodor Dostoevsky, the second a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by
Tennessee Williams. Yet whilst the second of these films was a
massive critical and commercial success and is now considered a classic
of its era, the first had comparatively little impact and remains one
of Brooks' most overlooked films, perhaps not without some
justification.
Dostoevsky's complex epic novel does not lend itself easily to a
cinematic interpretation. To date, there have been around ten
adaptations of
The Brothers Karamazov
and the only one which comes close to capturing the essence of the
author's novel is Fyodor Otsep's now virtually forgotten 1931 film
Les Frères Karamazoff.
Armed with a massive budget and an even larger dose of Hollywood
chutzpah, Brooks made a brave attempt to give Dostoevsky's novel the
blockbuster treatment he felt it deserves but he was clearly
overwhelmed by the scale of his undertaking. Whole chunks of the
novel are discarded, its author's deep philosophical meanderings
reduced to trite, toe-curling sound-bites, and all that remains
are the more sensational aspects of the story, with most of the latter
half of the film taken up by a murder mystery that feels like the 19th
century Russian equivalent of a Perry Mason intrigue.
On the plus side, Brooks manages to get the best out of his remarkable
ensemble of actors, particularly Yul Brynner who excels in what should
rate as one of his greatest screen roles. For the part of the
most complex and contradictory of the four Karamazov brothers Brynner
is a perfect choice, having not only the physique to be convincing as a
military man but also the ability to project his character's inner
turmoil as he becomes torn by a series of profound moral
dilemmas. Brynner's standout performance is only rivalled by that
of Lee J. Cobb, who grabs our attention in every scene he appears as
the Karamazovs' despicable and lecherous old father. Albert Salmi
comes into his own in one memorable scene as the bastard Smerdjakov,
the scene in which he confesses his crime to his half-brother Ivan with
a relish that is chillingly psychotic. Making a respectable
screen debut as the pious Alexei is the future captain of the Starship
Enterprise, William Shatner, whilst Richard Basehart does a fine job of
humanising the more ambiguous of the Karamazovs, Ivan - it's a shame
that both of their characters had to be downgraded so severely to allow
Brynner's Dmitri to take most of the focus. Maria Schell is as
radiant as ever as the troublesome femme fatale Grushenka (a part that
Marilyn Monroe was desperate to play), but she is out classed every
inch of the way by Claire Bloom, a surprisingly effective choice for
the part of the idealistic Katya.
Brooks' direction of
The Brothers
Karamazov is confident but seldom as inspired as in most of his
other films. As commendable as the film is in both the writing
and acting departments, it struggles to shake off its suffocating
mantle of Hollywood artifice and get to the heart of what Dostoevsky's
novel is about. The performances may be rich and compelling but
the film's two and half hour run time makes it something of an ordeal,
and it is hard not to be dismayed by the forced sentimentality of the
closing scene. If the film succeeds in getting the spectator to
read one of the greatest works of Russian literature that is something,
but Brooks presumably had a much greater ambition in mind when he set
out to make it, and in this respect he surely failed.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Fyodor Karamazov has three sons by two marriages - Dmitri, Ivan and
Alexei. He also has an illegitimate son, Smerdyakov, whom he
employs as a servant. Dmitri, the eldest son, is as debauched as
his father, whom he constantly bothers for money to cover his gambling
debts. Ivan and Alexei lead more respectable lives, the first a
free-thinking journalist, the second a novice priest. To save the
reputation of the noble woman Katya, Dmitri loans her money he has
extorted from his father. In return, having inherited a fortune,
Katya persuades Dmitri to marry her. But on the eve of their
wedding, Dmitri finds his attention drawn to Grushenka, his father's
beautiful young mistress. When his father refuses to give him the
remainder of his inheritance so that he can pay back some money he
stole from Katya, Dmitri threatens to kill him. This gives
Smerdyakov an idea to settle a few scores...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.