THE IDIOT

After a long stay in a Swiss nursing home, Prince Myškin, who comes from impoverished Russian aristocracy, returns to his hometown St. Petersburg. There the extremely honest and selfless Prince – who is regarded as an „idiot“ because of this – meets two women: Pure Aglaja and disreputable Nastas’ja Filipovna. In his kindheartedness he proposes to Nastas’ja who shall marry the unloved Tockij. Thereby he loses his beloved Aglaja and attracts the anger of Rogožin who has his eye on Nastas’ja himself. The innocent Myškin wants to become friends with Rogožin; but when the latter one cannot win Nastas’ja he brutally breaks all ties. Gérard Philippe’s big children’s eyes give this French Myškin a special mould of an almost pathological sensitivety and infantile religiousness.