Hello! My name is John. I'm new to this forum, but not completely new to film making. I've made a few shorts, one of which actually made it to some film festivals. I'm currently working on a feature entitled "Notes from the New World," based on Dostoyevsky's "Notes from the Underground." It's written and will be directed by Vitaly Sumin, who's put together another film called "Shades of Day," based on Dostoyevsky's "White Nights." It was included in a course at Rutgers University on films based on the Russian writer. A number of the films included were "Life Lessons," by Scorsese, based on "The Gambler," Von Sternberg's version of "Crime and Punishment," and of course "The Idiot," by Kurosawa. I was wondering if anyone knows which of these, or any film that you know of, captures the true essence of Dostoyevsky? I have only begun to read his works, but I'm eager to get some ideas about how to help out in making this current film work even better. Your help would be very much appreciated!
jjf
jjf
that's totally an awesome venture you're working on. dostoevsky is by far and away my favorite novelist. it's difficult to capture his feel on film, however. all great novels are incredibly difficult to capture on film, and dostoevsky even more so. kurosawa is definitely a step in the right direction, however, and the idiot was a great work.
i would suggest using lots of first person narrative for this most recent work just like the character does in "notes from the underground". that's the only way you can get the true feel for the two sides of the man.
i would suggest making the notes film very individualistic with most of the focus on the main character. that's not much help i know but can you tell us a bit more about how you're going about filming? i'd really like to know. is there any place we can see a preview or some of your previous work?
www.youtube.com/nietzscheluv
www.youtube.com/nietzscheluv
Don't want to be a buzz kill but how many dostoevsky stories have become films. Think about it, I don't think he translates into a general audience.
RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA
RJSchwarz
To be fair, I think several of Dostoyevsky's most famous books are around 600 pages long, so not exactly well suited for movies!
Hello, and thank you so much for the replies. Yes, I know how very difficult it is to market films based on works of serious literature, but Mr. Sumin's "Notes from the New World" is only very loosely based on "Underground." It is a suspense/thriller dealing with all the things that seem to make up the bulk of Hollywood films: death, sex, Mafia(the Russian kind here), but is sprinkled with characteristic Dostoyevsky themes: loneliness, despair, uncertainty. I don't want to divulge too much of the story(which would be easy as I am script supervisor), but you can see more information about it at www.shadesofday.com/VMP. Still, it would be great to find out more about the other films based on his work just to see how they've been handled(just for myself). Do you know if any or all of Kurosawa's original uncut version of "The Idiot" has survived?
jjf
jjf
