Continuing my countdown of the final 10 in 100 Consecutive Movie Nights!
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, starring Nikolay Cherkasov. I thought I’d pick another film made as WWII was still raging. As the Axis forces were approaching Moscow, Sergei Eisenstein and many other Soviet filmmakers were evacuated to Alma Ata in the Kazakh Republic, where he came up with the plan to make a three-part film about the 16th century tsar who united Russia. With Stalin’s enthusiastic approval, the project launched into production at the Mosfilm studio in Alma Ata.
Stalin loved part one, about the strong and noble leader Ivan, but was less enthused about part two, about crazed and paranoid Ivan consulting with his secret police and ordering a flurry of executions… Realizing the direction the project was taking, Stalin banned the release of Part II and halted work on Part III. After Eisenstein’s death in 1948 the footage from Part Three was confiscated and was reported to have been destroyed. Part II was finally released in 1958.
Ivan the Terrible Pt. 1 is an amazing work, a totally unique vision from a brilliant filmmaker with tremendous resources at his disposal, including Sergei Prokofiev as composer. The cinematography by Eduard Tisse and Andrei Moskvin is jaw-dropping. Every shot, no matter how transitory, is meticulously composed and stunningly lit. The interiors are bizarre and shadowy, the entire palace is some kind of weird fairy tale, with orthodox saints staring down on all sides. And the exteriors – battle scenes and the end sequence, in which the people of Moscow march in a long snaking column to beg Ivan to return to power, are starkly picturesque. I could go on and on about the composition of each frame of this movie, but that’s really film geeky so I will restrain myself. But it is a thing of beauty.
The performances will be strange to modern eyes, quite stiff and formal, with some silent movie-style emoting, but in Eisenstein’s hands it’s not just hammy stuff, it fits the entire tone of the piece. The director later said his intention was to create a feeling of “majesty”, and if you add to that “weird fairy tale settings”, “mythic character archetypes”, and “extreme Russian-ness”, you will get a good idea of this film.
(Russian-ness = lots of sub-basement bass singing in lofty, echoing spaces. Speeches intoned in rich Russian. Orthodox icons. Wild-eyed peasants rising up, only to be skilfully redirected by savvy ruler. Court intrigue, spies, gossip, plotting. Fear and paranoia.) (Good times!)
If you’re not used to this kind of film, you may find it a little hard to warm up to, but the plot moves along nicely, twisting and turning, and it’s just so bizarrely gorgeous. And Prokofiev!
This film is available on the Criterion Channel.
