A 19th-century judge faces death—and discovers his entire life was a lie.
Based on Tolstoy's short novel, The Death of Ivan Ilyich was made with Lajos Básti in the great title role of the St Petersburg forensic judge. This timeless work is also about acceptance, moral values, empathy and the often difficult-to-decipher intricacies of human relationships.
Acting
Lajos Básti’s devastating physical transformation.
Direction
Mihályfi’s stark, claustrophobic framing of dying.
Director
Imre Mihályfi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hungarian TV movies of the 1960s were often more artistically daring than theatrical releases, with state funding allowing experimental adaptations of world literature.
Tolstoy wrote this after his own spiritual crisis, and the novella influenced later existentialists including Heidegger, who cited Ivan's confrontation with death as authentic Dasein.
HU
