Product Details

• Actors: Nikolai Cherkasov, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, Serafima Birman, Mikhail Nazvanov, Mikhail Zharov
• Directors: Sergei M. Eisenstein
• Writers: Sergei M. Eisenstein
• Producers: Sergei M. Eisenstein
• Format: Black & White, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Russian
• Subtitles: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Homevision
• VHS Release Date: June 6, 2000
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000IOUZ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #480,213 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A biography of the first czar of Russia was the final movie project of the great Sergei Eisenstein's life. It would be his undoing, as Stalin was not pleased with part II of this epic. But Ivan the Terrible, Part I still stands as a magnificent, rich, and strange achievement. This is a "composed" film to make Hitchcock look slapdash; every frame is arranged with the eye of a painter or choreographer, the mise-en-scène so deliberately artificial that even the actors' bodies become elements of style. (They complained about contorting themselves to fit Eisenstein's designs.) If you don't believe movies can be art, this could be (and has been) dismissed as ludicrous. But Eisenstein's command of light and shadow becomes its own justification, as the fascinating court intrigue plays out in a series of dynamic, eye-filling scenes. This is not a political theorist, but a director drunk on pure cinema. --Robert Horton

Product Description

The monumental final work of cinematic giant Sergei Eisenstein, Ivan the Terrible chronicles the life of Czar Ivan the IV, who unified Russia in the 16th century. In part one of this larger-than-life, meticulously detailed two-part epic, Ivan ruthlessly extends his empire by wresting power from a corrupt aristocracy and conquering neighboring enemies. Eisenstein's arresting imagery adds near-operatic grandeur to Ivan's lavish coronation, his destruction of the Tartar city of Kazan, his self-imposed abdication in response to court treachery and his return to the throne at the request of the common people --all set to a magnificent score by Prokofiev. Stalin himself loved this triumphant treatment of his personal favorite Czar. He was considerably less pleased with part two, which daringly implied criticism of Ivan's later abuses of power and struggles with his own conscience.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How not to transfer a classic to DVD, February 1, 1999

By 

M. Hafner (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ivan the Terrible - Pt. 1 (DVD)

This DVD of the classic Eisenstein movie is a bitter disappointment. The image quality is very bad with fuzzy pictures, wanting contrast and noise. The English subtitles can not be turned off and the opening credits have been butchered (live original footage and credits replaced by stills and English credits). Avoid and wait for a decent release of this wonderful film on DVD.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Caveat emptor!, May 4, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ivan the Terrible - Pt. 1 (DVD)

This DVD is nothing but a direct reproduction of the decrepit 35mm film. No attempt has been made at restoration; the sound track is exceptionally poor; the subtitles almost unreadable at times.

Don't be suckered in. Wait for a better distributor of this magnificent film.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Michelangelo of Cinema, February 17, 2002

By 

Captain Cook (Leeward to the Sandwich Islands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ivan the Terrible - Pt. 1 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

For Westerners Ivan the Terrible is in the same mental pocket as such unlovely characters as Rasputin, Vlad the Impaler, and even Joseph Stalin. Although he definitely had a brutal and bloodthirsty side and looked rather creepy, he was also one of RussiaÕ's greatest statesmen (probably because he was so brutal and bloodthirsty and looked so creepy!).

Although depicting the achievements of a Tsar, this film got the go-ahead from the Communist authorities because Comrade Stalin identified with the central character and wanted to encourage patriotism. Eisenstein's ambivalent treatment of the nature of power in Part 2, however, offended Stalin who withdrew persmission to complete what was originally intended to be a trilogy

The two films that we have were made in the aftermath of the defeat of the German invasion as the Russian armies rolled West rather as they had rolled East in Ivan's day when Kazan and Astrakhan had fallen to the rising power of the Russian state.

When I first saw this film, it was a little like the first time I heard "Riders on the Storm" by the Doors: it just completely STOOD OUT from everything else on TV and in the cinema. I was immediately impressed by its intensity and uniqueness.

Every shot and scene are powerfully stylised, every statement emphasised and dramatised. Watching this, you realize how bland, wishy-washy, and sloppy most movies are by comparision. Artistic energy and craftsmanship are never absent for a moment. Nothing is left to chance, nothing is wasted; everything is touched by the central guiding genius. It is dense and muscular, and tense. The scenes have the same gravity and power as the scuptures and paintings of the great Michelangelo.

Some people might be amazed that such artistic heights were reached under a Communist system that repressed free expression, but here in the West we also have our own form of repression, perhaps even more insidious than the whims and dictates of Comrade Stalin. I refer to the pressure of making a buck! This was one pressure that Michelangelo didn't have when the Pope commissioned him to paint the Cistine Chapel, or Eisenstein when Stalin allowed him to make the first two great parts of this triology.