Intertextuality in kurosawa's film adaptation of dostoevsky's The Idiot

Abstract

Analyzes the role intertextuality plays in the adjustments Akira Kurosawa made when he translated the classic novel by Dostoevsky onto screen. Kurosawa's (Hakuchi), a film adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Idiot, has been the subject of mixed reviews. While some consider the film a successful adaptation that captures the spirit of the original, others criticize Hakuchi for its overly faithful rendition of the novel. What has been missing is an investigation of Kurosawa's filmic strategy. Yoon examines the transposition of a chronotope - the spatial move from the center to the periphery and the treatment of the time setting - and suggests that Hakuchi is no simple modernization of the novel, but a work in which we can see how Kurosawa fleshes out his own interpretation of a tragic journey. In so doing, it becomes apparent that Kurosawa rationalizes the polyphonic novel and attempts to create a new kind of melodrama.