Pyotr Chardynin’s The Idiot as a Phenomenon of Creative Reinterpretation of Dostoevsky’s Novel

Abstract

The essay explores the artistic and expressive features of the world's first
film adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, directed in 1910 by Pyotr Chardynin.
The author substantiates the degree of influence of one of the most important
philosophical concepts of the novel — that of a split in the human personality — on
Russian national consciousness at the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis
of the figurative system of the film shows that its semantics and the images of its
characters were ahead of its time and, therefore, deserve closer critical attention.
In the The Idiot the idea of Dostoevsky about a human being’s separateness in the
world is revealed in the four main characters — Prince Myshkin, Parfyon Rogozhin,
Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya — who are not “complete”, full-fledged personalities
but separate components of a harmonious human personality. These characters, like
puzzle pieces, possess mutually complementary qualities. Thus, Prince Myshkin,
the bearer of the highest spirituality, is contrasted with the earthly and passionate
Rogozhin. And the images of Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya are connected,
respectively, with the images of Heavenly Love and Earthly Love. If the characters
of the novel could unite with each other in love and harmony, the world would get a
“complete” harmonious person, like the one created by God for the Garden of Eden.
However, such a merger seems impossible within the limits of earthly existence. In
Dostoevsky's novel the individual parts of the soul could not unite into a harmonious
whole. Egoism, passion, pride and imperfection of human nature do allow the
protagonists to unite and lead them towards personal disintegration.
In Russian national cinema, Dostoevsky’s idea of human being’s separateness
undergoes a number of transformations. The changes introduced by Pyotr
Chardynin into the film adaptation of the novel mostly relate to the image of the
film’s main protagonist — Nastasya Filippovna, whom the filmmaker associates
with a dying Russia. Chardynin also transforms other protagonists. Prince Myshkin
is the only carrier of the highest spirituality, while Nastasya Filippovna, Aglaya and
Rogozhin are earthly and passionate. At the end of the film, Nastasya Filippovna’s
murderer Rogozhin, dressed in a Russian folk costume, sobs at the bedside of the
dead “tsarina”, while “heavenly prince” Myshkin who was not accepted by her in her
lifetime, comforts the sinner. Chardynin’s film transforms the idea of a split in the
human personality into the idea of the Russian separateness from God, the internal
split within the Russian world and, as a consequence, that world’s inevitable death.