Russian Classics Archive

“At the end of 1879,  the doctors examining Dostoyevsky discovered that he had a progressive lung disease. On the morning of February 28, Dostoevsky told his wife: ”I know I must die today!..”  At 20:38 of the same day...
Daniel Day-Lewis. Denzel Washington. Viola Davis. Meryl Streep. All these A-list celebrities are magnificent choices for the greatest at their craft in America. Lists plague the internet discussing the greatest of all time. While it is rather arbitrary to...
“The highest and most characteristic trait of our people is the sense of justice and its thirst.”   ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky The summer of 2020 has us waiting in an infinite loop for new movies, such as Christopher Nolan’s much...
One of the most successful indie film stories in modern history involves a little bit of luck, the world-famous Sundance Film Festival, and Dostoevsky’s seminal work The Brothers Karamazov. The 1995 film The Brothers McMullen, written by, directed by,...
Before seeing “The Farewell”, think of the last time you’ve seen a grandma in a movie- what did she do with her grandchild? Did she cook up their favorite meal? Maybe she was a tree and magically blew some...
Patience Griswald crafted a thought-provoking article titled “How Would Dostoevsky Have Responded to the Smartphone?” In the article, Griswald noted that Brothers Karamazov painted a picture of a “lonely and isolated” (then contemporary) Russia. Parallels do exist between the...
Spite – noun: 1. a desire to hurt, annoy, or offend someone.   Sympathy and empathy often draw a reader to the main character of a novel. Understandably, authors commonly cast their main characters in sympathetic lights. A main...
Please read this blog and advise (leave a message) if you’d like VM Productions to consider creating an adaptation of Fyodor & Polina’s story, either as a period play or a contemporary adventure taking place in Los Angeles (in...
VM Productions’ film Notes From the New World may be an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground, a story that affects a wide variety of emotions as Russian classics tend to do, usually the tormenting and psychological kind...