Please forgive me if this is addressed in the commentary and is all old news. I haven't gotten my paws on the DVD yet. Yet.
So I've never read Dostoevsky - can't even spell him without nervous reference, right? - and couldn't help but notice the very prominent focus given to
The Idiot in the film.
Just went hunting and experienced a jaw-dropping moment
at this:
It represents, we are told, a dead man who is totally flesh without life, damaged and destroyed, with no hint of a possible future resurrection. ... the dead man in the painting is an executed man, whose consciousness has been brutally cut off. There is a rhythmic meditation on murder and execution in this story ... Connected to the terrible lucidity of the condemned man in the tumbril is the unearthly lucidity of the pre-epileptic aura, bliss without time or space, eternity in an instant. The images are their own meaning. ... The women think they are in a story about seduction, rape, proposals, money and marriage ... The prince is in some absolute moral world in which he can instinctively gauge who is being cruel to whom, who is in need and who is tormenting or tormented ... (the women) consider "loving" the prince for those qualities of patience and attention and kindness, which do attract both over-experienced and gawkily innocent women.
I know I'm getting all that from a review, even if it's written by AS Byatt, but woah!
Anyone read the actual book? Or does Brad say something about it in the commentary? Sorry, bit of an academic nerd here and when films and books collide in such marvellous fashion, I get very excited. :p