"CRIME AND PUNISHMENT" "The music was written by Janusz Hajdun, with additional piano effects" "recorded by Leszek Mozdzer." "I asked Janusz to compose music which would be reminiscent of the soundtracks to Hitchcock's films" "composed by Bernard Herman." "Opening credits were made at the end as an almost independent mini film" "and they too were inspired by the opening credits of Hitchcock's films" "such as Psycho, where you could see elements of animation" "and the music already introduced the mood and created tension." "The film's premiere took place at the Ottawa festival." "The audience was not aware that it was half-an-hour long." "The opening credits ran for three minutes and at their end people started applauding, thinking this was the end of the film." "I carried around the idea of adapting Crime and Punishment for many years." "It came to me in 1980, my final year in college," "when I was working on my final drawing project." "It consisted of an eight-page cartoon based on Crime and Punishment, which was actually more like a shooting script." "I'd never made a film, but when I showed it to Daniel Szczechura" "as a film concept, he said:" ""Do it"." "Twenty years passed before I started making the film." "It would of course be a completely different film if I had done it then." "Here, just like in the case of Kafka," "I gradually eliminated fantastic fragments for the sake of realism." "It is almost a live-action film." "It is even closer to reality than Gentle Spirit:" "there is no morphing, no animated movement of space." "The space is built almost entirely through multiplan." "There are also some real, three-dimensional elements" "like twigs, leaves and dried flowers." "Occasionally a streetlamp was "played" by a pen and the edge of a wall by the edge of a book." "The beginning is inspired by a sentence from Dostoyevsky's letter" "in which he calls St. Petersburg a phantom city" "and expresses his anxiety at the thought of mist being blown away" "only to reveal that there is not city there at all but only marshland." "I used this idea for the beginning:" "from out of marshes and mists gliding over the ground," "there emerges a five-storey Petersburgian house." "And entering the house, we enter the city spread behind it." "It was to be a story of a city that creates its characters from nothing" "and a story about two worlds: the world of man and the world of nature." "This city is still surrounded by marshlands and wilderness and events taking place here are strongly influenced by nature." "There are more animals and insects here than in any other of my films" "and there is something animal-like about the characters, too." "They have animal eyes." "Having done away with dialogue," "I had to convey everything through gesture and facial expression." "Eyes are especially important:" "the characters watch each other ceaselessly and it is their eyes that betray their fear, despair and desire." "This was a dream scene which was not part of the novel " "the film is quite a loose adaptation." "However, it had a fragment about Raskolnikov waking up from a nap to see a man sitting by the bed and watching him closely." "The reader could take this disturbing stranger to be part of the dream." "This is how I did it: a man appears in Raskolnikov's dream" "and signals the appearance of Svidrigailov in reality." "I had to exclude many characters;" "it was impossible to cover all the strands of the plot." "It was my ambition to do the first multi-layered film in my career, but I couldn't tell the whole story of Marmeladov" "or Razumihin's love for Dounia." "Svidrigailov's love for her is only signaled through a portrait carried in a suitcase, which emerges here like a memory." "This face shouldn't be confused with Sonia's -- it's a different woman." "The music here was meant to resemble a fragment from Saint-Saëns, Carnival of the Animals." "Generally, I wanted this to be a sort of an animated Hitchcock," "which turned out to be very difficult, considering that everybody knows the novel and its ending." "Moreover, 75% of the novel takes place after the crime." "How to show the murder in the beginning and then develop the theme of inner tension and transformation of Raskolnikov," "of his complex relationships with others?" "This is the first encounter with Sonia," "a sort of guarding angel, which appears here in a different way than in the book." "There, Raskolnikov only heard about her before committing the crime," "which he decides to confess to her afterwards." "In my film he knows her before the murder," "which I placed almost at the end of the film," "and therefore there is a possibility" "that Sonia will stop Raskolnikov from committing it." "Svidrigailov embodies the dark side of Raskolnikov's soul, just as the boy at the beginning embodies the innocent one." "In my reading, possibly contrary to Dostoyevsky's intentions, the main hero exists in three characters." "Three different time periods exists simultaneously:" "Raskolnikov as a boy," "young Raskolnikov about to commit murder, and old Raskolnikov as Svidrigailov looking back bitterly on his life" "and encouraging the young man to commit the crime." "In the book he also tries to persuade Raskolnikov not to confess and escape with him and Dounia to America." "Svidrigailov was in love with Dounia, Raskolnikov's sister." "This encounter of Raskolnikov with Dounia does not occur in the book." "It is permeated with the desire to stop the flow of events." "I have tried to make this scene, where he goes to see Sonia, resemble another scene later on, where he approaches the pawnbroker's room." "All the stairwells, balustrades, rooms and courtyards are so alike as to give an impression that it,s all happening in one house." "This condensation is present in Dostoyevsky,s novels:" "characters keep running into each other at street corners, or they meet on trains, as in the case of The Idiot." "I made use of this method by condensing the fates of the characters" "and showing them in close-up view." "I combined it with images from characters, psyches" " dreams, fears and delusions -- in a way which makes it hard to distinguish them from reality." "It gave the effect of blurred boundaries and cognitive uncertainty." "I still have reservations about the soundtrack." "Unfortunately, I had very little time to make it." "Everything was recorded in two nights," "so there was no time for polishing things up and it still bothers me when I watch it." "This coat put only half way on by Raskolnikov" "is an echo of a drawing by Krauze, where a husband puts on a coat" "and turns to his wife saying:" ""I'm going to meet the directives"." "The old woman is a figure I remember from films I watched as a child," "especially from Snow White," "where the mean stepmother is changed into a hunched old beggar." "She had a huge, hooked nose and oily hair in a bundle." "As we know, the old pawnbroker applied oil to her hair." "I recorded the look of the courtyards during a three-day trip to" "St. Petersburg I took few months before making the film." "This white streak on the right is the spine of the book" "Crime and Punishment, which I placed in the foreground to act as a wall." "Cotton wool in a keyhole is something I remember from my childhood:" "we shared the flat with another family and had to cover the keyhole." "Here we can see Svidrigailov peeking from the opposite flat." "He pulls out the cotton wool as if from an ear " "I wanted to make it disgusting." "This is Lizaveta, AIyona Ivanovna's sister." "The bell was rung by Krzysztof Lang, a film director, who sat around waiting for the studio to be vacated." "I Iike this shot." "I think I managed to animate the old woman pretty well." "Here she almost spoke, but the watch interrupted her." "This was the only morphing and illusory camera movement in the film." "You can see the present and the past penetrate one another here." "There is a miniature portrait of Dostoyevsky on the dresser, acting as the portrait of the pawnbroker's late husband." "Crickets and watches were the first idea I had concerning sound." "Red apples scattering on the floor are again a reference to Snow White " "she took a bite and dropped dead, while the red apple rolled on the floor." "After the murder everything falls silent and only the blood flows down a grass leaf." "The nature's role here is to soothe, or maybe indicate that it is all part of" "the horrible phenomenon called life:" "the animal Raskolnikov killed the animal pawnbroker." "There are places in this film which even I don't understand." "Does she appear here or is it only his memory of what could have been?" "Is this young Raskolnikov or maybe their potential child," "which cannot be born and therefore disappears," "because Raskolnikov committed murder and closed certain doors for himself?" "He was to dissolve on this bridge, but the shot was cut out as it was too fantastic." "Only his shadow disappears." "Another fragment I don't understand:" "Sonia runs after Rodion in a storm," "while Raskolnikov wakes up, making us uncertain whether it was a dream or something about to happen." "This street is a reminiscence of Wolska street in Warsaw," "where I lived as a boy." "At the time I was obsessed with walled gardens." "A wall separating the city from nature, which observes us closely." "Just like the flies observed the Gentle Spirit, so the trees and plants watch the events unraveling in the city." "The city sinks." "It's as if Svidrigailov was the only man that survived." "The empty boat adds to this impression." "And, just like in the novel, before committing suicide Svidrigailov" "spends the night in a hotel." "In the morning he shoots himself." "This is a motif from Munch:" "a man sitting by the window." "The faces are greatly influenced by those painted by Rembrandt." "And here's Manhattan again, drawn this time in 2000." "I consider Svidrigailov the most mysterious and most romantic of all of Dostoyevsky's characters." "Just before death, he talks to a man who tries to stop him" "by saying: "This isn't the right place"." "Svidrigailov replies:" ""The place is right, and if they ask about me, tell them I've gone to America"."