#its not urgent! most of the first episode is original stuff and ive translated just a couple of scenes anyway

[whenyoulosesmallmind]

the more i go over this drama, the more i am amazed at how theatrical it looks; as i said before, the camera work is very simple, may it be because it was 1969, may it be because it was made for tv, maybe it was even a conscious choice - but! the camera movements are so fluid in the way they follow the actors, focusing on the character's emotions and body language or distancing itself from the action to include thematics particulars from the set and give the scene more breath - im enamoured with how the kitchen scene with alyosha, ivan, smerdyakov and fyodor in the second episode is shot; first, the scene is set with a larger shot where grigory and smerdyakov are setting the table and fyodor and ivan are eating - might i add, giving ivan a cigar to smoke in this scene was chef kiss - then alyosha comes in and as the discussion progresses into more heavier themes the camera pans nervously from smerdyakov to ivan, the frame getting closer still, until it settles unto smerdyakov as he maniacally empasises his final points.

it seems like nothing, but i love this production's earnestness.

some more sparse notes:

absolutely mad props to the costume department; it's not exactly period accurate, but it's just so fitting - ivan's cunty coat he wears meeting with father zosima needs his own separate analysis post

i don't remember if this happens also in the original text - i will check - but even if in italian there's a semantic distinction between the kinds of "i love yous", "ti voglio bene" for familial/platonic love and "ti amo" for the romantic kind, for the adaptation is mantained the latter for every instance and it is making me insane and i need time to elaborate

speaking of semantic decisions, i don't know if it was more commonly used at the time, but they refer to grusha as "la grushenka" and the brothers call fyodor "babbo" instead than "papà" and it's so funny bcs putting the article before female names and referring to ones father as "babbo" are notorius quirks of the tuscanian dialect so-- the karamazovs have become tuscanians

also, "babbo" is used as a way of saying "dad" only in tuscany - and maybe other central/southern italian regions? idk i can only speak for tuscany - bcs in other dialects "babbo" is used as a synonim for "idiot/dumb". lmao

im not hundred percent sold on carla gravina as katerina, she has a bit more of a... manic? feel that i got from the katya from the book, more nervous, but we'll see, i wasn't completely sold on corrado pani as dmitrij as well initially and now im respectfully biting him, so -- though i loved her close up when she's calling dmitrij "villainous". v nice

that said, lea massari absolutely owned the hand kiss scene and i have no words to describe my emotions

another aside about corrado pani, his decision to play dmitrij just cuntily leaning on stuff and get into peoples' faces when he's talking to them was something i wasnt expecting to be so into but here i am

literally no one's doing it like him. later in this scene he asks alyosha if he was falling asleep while he was recounting his military adventures