The film without the cuts. And the book itself.
A destitute student, convinced great men stand above the law, rehearses and then commits the axe-murder of a pawnbroker — and her sister.
Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov
A feverish former student in a worn coat tries to stand above ordinary morality and finds himself trapped inside human guilt.
Raskolnikov’s garret
A room under the roof so small it barely holds a man, let alone the thoughts he keeps there.
Crushed by debt and shame, he dreads a simple encounter like a sentence.
Read →Afraid of Meeting Her
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.
He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which invariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had a sick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her.
A man's whole state of mind is captured in the small dread of passing an open kitchen door. This is the first we see of Raskolnikov, the poor former student at the center of the novel, and before we learn anything about the murder he is turning over, we learn that he cannot face the woman he owes money to. The scale is telling: he is capable of contemplating an enormous crime, yet a chance meeting on the stairs fills him with shame and something close to panic. His pride and his helplessness are already tangled together.
The Murder
A destitute student, convinced great men stand above the law, rehearses and then commits the axe-murder of a pawnbroker — and her sister.
The axe
An ordinary household tool is what turns a private theory into blood on the floor.
Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov
A frightened young woman in poverty carries the book, the cross, and the pity Raskolnikov cannot invent for himself.
Crime and Punishment
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