Dostoevsky as a Network Movie? Read On

Don’t be misled. Despite what’s happening in the House Judiciary Committee, “Crime and Punishment” is not about President Clinton.

Instead, Dostoevsky’s great novel is about the redemption through turbulent inner anguish of a bright but confused and unstable young Russian law student who murders in the belief that achieving a “better world” at times requires great men to do terrible things.

History’s villains have used that rationale on a grand scale throughout this century. But here it is localized in the person of a young man with an ax.

It is 1865. And in a shabby warren of St. Petersburg, Rodya Raskolnikov comes to believe himself one of the superior elite, that the accepted morality of the masses--whom German philosopher Nietzsche later would title the herd--does not apply to him. In other words, the end justifies whatever means that he, with his supreme intellect, feels are necessary, however extreme.

This great-man or Napoleon fixation defines him through much of the story. Thus is he able to initially excuse his grisly hacking murders of an old miserly shrew of a pawnbroker and her luckless sister as necessary acts to preserve his own existence, which he believes will benefit Mother Russia much more than will the miserable lives of his victims. He plans to use the loot he stole from the butchered money lender to alleviate his poverty and help out his destitute family.

Here, vagueness intercedes, for just how this translates to a noble murder motive is something that even Raskolnikov appears unclear about. He is never able to define exactly what grandiose things he hopes to achieve merely by living better off the tiny fortune for which he has murdered. Thus, it’s no wonder that “Crime and Punishment” has been interpreted so many different ways since its publication in 1866.

Ambiguity is hardly the stuff of mainstream television. So you’d hardly think of Dostoevsky being on NBC’s A-list of authors, or this complex, brooding, deeply interior story airing on that network, whose recent success in showing the classics has come from such highly visual adventure yarns as “Gulliver’s Travels” and “The Odyssey.”

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Yet here it is, and a quite nice rendering, too, faithful to the tone of the novel and ever fascinating, if somewhat slenderized in this David Stevens teleplay. It’s a bit of a load, of course, but also a fine way to spend a Sunday evening--unless, speaking of classics, your taste runs instead to that night’s admirable PBS presentation of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” on “Masterpiece Theatre,” starring Ian Holm as a suddenly irrational monarch who receives no redemption. Thank goodness for VCRs.

“Crime and Punishment” director Joseph Sargent’s filming in Budapest conveys the oppressive grime and grayness of Raskolnikov’s surroundings and the extreme violence of his act. Beware of the murders: They’re rather graphic.

Meanwhile, Patrick Dempsey is very persuasive as this nihilistic protagonist, who, after avoiding prosecution, increasingly lapses into incoherent mutterings as his torment grows over the murders he has committed. He pays for his sins with suffering, and that suffering purifies him.

Although he has his moments of fire, Dempsey’s performance is subtle. He doesn’t beat his chest like a ranting superman, instead leveling out Raskolnikov’s supremacy obsession in a way that allows you to grasp the character’s own conflicting nature and self-doubt, and the extent to which he is mentally and physically shattered.

If anything is shortchanged here, it’s Raskolnikov’s intriguing relationship of feints and counter-feints with Porfiry (Ben Kingsley), the clever police detective to whom the murderer, after much prodding, finally confesses. Porfiry’s penchant for guile and smarmy flattery hides a moralistic streak, for it turns out that he is less interested in Raskolnikov being punished than redeemed.

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You’re left to wonder why, however. Everything between them on the screen plays well, but omitted from this treatment are crucial exchanges that illuminate why Porfiry has faith in the potential of someone who has committed two gory murders.

Giving Raskolnikov even more everlasting support is Sonia (Julie Delpy), a prostitute whose angelic nature is transcendent, and whose loyalty to him speeds his redemption en route to a conclusion in cold, snowy Siberia that remains as pat and unconvincing on the screen as in the novel. Another character earlier commits suicide because he can no longer tolerate his own hedonism. But as tortured as he is, Raskolnikov the ax murderer has a happier fate.

Although nearly everything preceding it is captivating, this illogical, idealized ending is the story’s soft spot. That is the stuff of mainstream TV. And without it, you have to wonder if NBC would have been as willing to take this gamble.

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* “Crime and Punishment” airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on NBC (Channel 4). The network has rated it TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14).