Raskolnikow. 1923. Germany. Directed by Robert Wiene. With Grigorij Chmara, Jelisaweta Skulskaja, Alla Tarassowa. North American premiere. Silent. 142 min.
In this haunting adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s masterwork, director Robert Wiene (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) melds German Expressionist aesthetics with the naturalistic performance style of exiled Russian actors from the Moscow Art Theater. Shot in Berlin during the tumultuous inflation of 1922, the film represents a unique cultural fusion—its jagged, anti-naturalistic sets providing an externalized landscape for Raskolnikov’s tortured psyche, while the Russian ensemble delivers performances of devastating psychological realism.
Grigorij Chmara embodies the murderous student Raskolnikov with harrowing intensity, moving through Andrej Andrejew’s distorted architectural spaces like a man trapped in his own fevered conscience. Wiene’s revolutionary decision to cast actual Russian émigrés—part of Berlin’s burgeoning exile community—lends the production an authenticity that transcends its experimental visual style, creating what contemporary critics called “not acting, but: living!”
This new digital restoration, undertaken by Filmmuseum München, reconstructs the film’s original tinting and incorporates previously lost footage from surviving prints in the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, and the United States. Though significantly shorter than its original release length, this version represents the most complete assembly of this landmark collaboration between German Expressionist cinema and Russian theatrical tradition.
2K digital reconstruction by Filmmuseum München.