Customer Reviews

Ivan the Terrible, The Complete Series, Parts One & Two, A Film by Sergei Eisenstein

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Joseph Stalin was a smart old monster, and when he saw the second part of Sergei Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible" he must have thought: "Hm, paranoia ... secret police ... pogroms ... you don't suppose ...?" He had the film confiscated, and it was not shown publicly until 1958, five years after the great dictator's death and ten years after the great director's. Part I of the epic had pleased the man of steel, but in that film Ivan is presented as an idealist who wants to make Russia a world power and must fight corrupt Boyars to achieve his noble aims. A planned Part III was never accomplished, and one can only wonder how the Kremlin would have dealt with it: after the age of 40 Ivan IV became increasingly erratic, killing his own son in a fit of pique. As long as Eisenstein's spectacle depicted the Tsar agonizing over Mother Russia everything was fine; but once the mock trials and mass executions began, the 16th Century began looking suspiciously contemporary. (In one scene, Ivan is shown sending an envoy to Elizabeth I of England, who must have thought of Ivan the way FDR thought of Stalin.) The movie's plot is a somewhat fictionalized account of Ivan's struggle with an ambitious aunt and his forming of the oprichnina, a protective cadre of husky young men. Behind all this, according to Eisenstein's biographers, was a difficult relationship with his mother and his sexual frustration. I think "Ivan the Terrible" is one of the most fascinating films ever made, but I have to be honest: it takes a little getting use to. The sets and costumes are extremely ornate, sometimes quite bizarre; and Prokofiev's glamorous score seems slightly disassociated from the action. But strangest of all is the acting, which must have baffled Eisenstein's admirers, remembering the almost documentary style of 1925's "The Battleship Potemkin". Eisenstein had been directing a production of "Die Walküre" at the Bolshoi, and the acting in "Ivan" is blatantly operatic: silent-screen swooning and bug-eyed staring. All this can bewilder you or bewitch you. With me, it's the latter, which is why I'm glad that Home Vision's new video is such an improvement over the old cassette I had. The visuals are crisp and clear, showing Edward Tissé's classic, carefully-composed black-and-white frames at their elegant best. Much has been written regarding the quality of the color in the frenetic, joyless banquet sequence. Granted, this is not exactly a Fox musical; but I find the effects striking, especially when poor Vladimir literally turns green. And you can READ the subtitles because they have been electronically enhanced. The translation also seems to have been improved, making situations and relationships easier to understand. A single typo ("fiend" for "friend") can be forgiven. Altogether, this is a superior presentation of an artistic work that is demanding but ultimately rewarding.