A great admirer of Russian literature (he would also go on to make a film of Gorky’s ‘The Lower Depths’), Akira Kurosawa found a particular affinity with Fyodor Dostoevsky and with his novel The Idiot in particular. Kurosawa wanted to be as faithful as possible to the original book in its adaptation to the screen - a decision which resulted in a four and a half hour (265 minute) film, which was never released in its full form, but cut to 165 minutes by Shochiku. The inevitable problems with adapting any work of literature to the screen are therefore compounded by the loss of so much incident and psychological development, but The Idiot nevertheless remains one of Kurosawa’s key works.

Transferred from the society settings of Moscow and St Petersburg to the snow-swept regions of northern Japan, The Idiot loses much of Dostoyevsky's satire of Russian society, but in most other aspects it remains fairly faithful to the novel's characters and their psychological make-up. Just released from an institution where he has been incarcerated, Kameda (Masayuki Mori) returns to his home in Hokkaido a changed man. Charged as a war criminal and almost shot by a firing squad, the shock has made Kameda ill and prone to epileptic fits. Moreover, he is also no longer able to lie or dissemble, speaking frankly and honestly in such a way that he is regarded as a pure, simple fool – an idiot.

On the train to Hokkaido he meets an old friend Akama (Toshiro Mifune), who is also travelling home after the death of his father. Disinherited after spending his father’s money on a diamond ring for Nasu Taeko (Setsuko Hara), Akama has every intention of restating his claim for the beautiful woman. As Kameda was believed to have died during the war, his relative Ono (Takashi Shimura) has disposed of his property and inheritance through Kayama (Minoru Chiaki), who, despite his love for Ono’s daughter Ayoko (Yoshiko Kuga), is also about to marry the woman Akama loves - Nasu Taeko. Beautiful and glamorous though she is, Taeko is however a woman of ill-repute, a former concubine of Tohata, who is trying to rid himself of her by foisting her upon Kayama.

Kameda’s disarming honesty and his ability to delve below the surface into the hearts of those around him has however an unsettling affect on all these people when he comes into contact with them on his return home. He may be considered an idiot, but Nasu Taeko soon comes to realise that he is cleverer than most when it comes to understanding human feelings.

It’s not difficult to see the attraction of Dostoevsky’s novel for Kurosawa and its influence can be seen in many of the director’s subsequent films. In the original novel, as far as I can recall, the circumstances of Myshkin’s illness are never described. Here Kameda tells us that he faced a firing squad and the incident has forced him to reappraise his own life and the actions of people around him. This was a circumstance endured by Dostoevsky himself, and the event was clearly influential in determining the direction of his views on human nature, both in the depths to which it could sink and in an appreciation of the goodness that lies in every person. Myshkin is the most Christ-like figure in all of Dostoevsky’s works and echoes of his counterpart in Kurosawa’s film here, Kameda, can be found in many of the director’s films – Scandal, Ikiru, I Live In Fear and Red Beard are populated by innocent characters whose honesty and forthrightness places them at odds with society around them, but whose simple goodness opens up the eyes of everyone to their true nature and to a better understanding of the people around them. Kurosawa would take this character to its furthest extreme in his final film Madadayo, where the God-like worship of an old school master by his former students would be incomprehensible were it not for the antecedents seen stretching back to The Idiot.

Undiluted, this glorification of the innocent fool in Madadayo and here in The Idiot can be problematic, melodramatic and over-sentimental. It’s not particularly convincing in Dostoevsky’s novel, which is rambling, unstructured and dubious in its psychology and, cut down considerably from its full form, it’s even less so here in Kurosawa’s adaptation. Nevertheless, it is intriguing to not only see where a lot of Kurosawa’s later material and subject matter comes from, but to see the director working against his usual style. There are also some unusual performances to decipher from a cast who also often work against type. The great Ozu actress Setsuko Hara (Noriko in Ozu’s trilogy of Late Spring, Early Summer and Tokyo Story, plays a very different kind of character here as Nasu Taeko. It’s a particularly Russian type of character, so it is an undoubted challenge to present her convincingly as a Japanese woman and Hara doesn’t always convince. But it too is an intriguing performance. Rather than being miscast, the personality of Hara allows us to see beyond the exterior impression Taeko gives to the world as a woman of dubious morals and see the troubled, abused innocence that Kameda sees when he looks in her eyes. Masayuki Mori himself as Kameda is also excellent, capturing an otherworldly sense of mysticism. Kurosawa regulars Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura round out an excellent cast with solid performances that are perhaps only let down by the truncation of their development in the cutting of the film from its full length.

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DVD
The Idiot and Scandal are released as part of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema range. Both films were made for Shochiku in Japan in a key period of the director’s work that saw him come to prominence with Rashomon and soon after with Ikiru and Seven Samurai, but are less well known and consequently have rarely been seen in the West. As noted in the review, the original version of The Idiot was 265 minutes long, but was cut to 166 minutes before its release. It is unlikely that the negatives or prints of the film at its original length still exist. The Idiot is encoded for Region 2 and is in NTSC format.

Video
The quality of the print here is certainly better than the Masters of Cinema release of Scandal in that it has much fewer minor marks and scratches. There are occasional flaws evident on individual frames, but there is nothing that constitutes serious damage here. Contrast balance however is not great, the tone being greyish throughout, even in outdoor snow scenes where a greater contrast might be expected. Indoor scenes can consequently appear a little murky, particularly as the image is a little on the soft side. This appears to be an issue with Shochiku transfers, since their Ozu films released by Tartan suffer from the same problems of softness and lack of contrast. Rather than compound the problems with an unnecessary NTSC to PAL transfer as Tartan have done, Masters of Cinema have released The Idiot in the native NTSC of the Shochiku master.

Audio
There are quite a few problems with the sound, but most of them are down to the quality of the original materials. Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, the sound is quite crackly throughout, volume levels change and fluctuate – notably when music is inserted into a scene. None of this however causes much in the way of trouble and, again rather than dampening the elements with over-vigorous noise reduction, the soundtrack and dialogue remains audible and adequately clear.

Subtitles
English subtitles are provided and are optional. The font is white and can be clearly read at all times.

Extras
Introduction (7:48)
Alex Cox provides another introduction to the film, again as with Scandal relying largely on Donald Ritchie’s examination of the film, but at least acknowledging his sources here.

Gallery
The only other extra feature on the disc is a collection of 23 black and white Shochiku promotional stills for the film and one colour poster design.

Booklet
A thick booklet is included with contains two essays, one by Daryl Chin which tries, citing as many references to literary adaptations as possible, to make the case for The Idiot as one of Kurosawa’s boldest experiments. It’s far from convincing and so academically worded and annotated that it is barely readable. Also included in the booklet and much more concise and even-handed is Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro’s summary of the film’s production and problems.

Overall
Tied so closely to the original source material, The Idiot feels distinctly unlike the Kurosawa who would approach literary adaptation with much more originality and force in his magnificent adaptations of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ (Throne of Blood) and ‘King Lear’ (Ran). Yet despite its flaws The Idiot is a key work in the Akira Kurosawa back catalogue, allowing us to see the source of influential elements like the Myshkin/Kameda character that the director would make very much his own in later films. It’s also an opportunity to see the director work in a different style with some of his regular actors like Mori, Chiaki, Mifune and Shimura alongside familiar Ozu actors like Setsuko Hara and Chieko Higashiyama. The quality of the original elements and the lack of any in-depth extra features prevent this DVD release from reaching the standard we have come to expect from other Masters of Cinema releases, but every effort has clearly been made to present the film as well as it can possibly look, and for that and its status as a rare Kurosawa, this certainly merits attention.

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