Ivan the Terrible, Part I

Few works in cinema can rival the visual splendour or ambitious scale of the great Eisenstein’s magnificent, monumental final film project, “arguably his masterpiece of masterpieces” (Paul Taylor). Ivan the Terrible was originally conceived as a trilogy on the life of Tsar Ivan IV (1530-1584). Although only the first two films were ever finished, they stand as a lasting testament to the director’s towering talents. In Part I, Ivan (played by Nikolai Cherkassov) is crowned Tsar of all the Russias, but finds his rule opposed by the boyars (the feudal aristocracy), who poison his wife and ultimately force him to abdicate. In Part II, Ivan, returned to power, sets out to destroy his enemies, while an aunt plots his assassination. Ivan is throughout an achievement of exquisite, opulent beauty, set to a masterful original score by Prokofiev. The compositions are elaborate and ornate, the costumes and decor deliriously sumptuous, and Eisenstein’s expressive use of the human face — of character “types” — is, as always, breathtaking. Much of the film’s highly stylized, often bizarre imagery derives from Grand Opera, Japanese Kabuki, and Russian icon art; Eisenstein would write that “the grandeur of our theme necessitated a grandiose design.” Part I was begun at the Alma-Ata studios in Soviet Kazakhstan, where the Moscow film industry had retreated during the worst days of the war. It premiered to great acclaim in Moscow in 1944, and earned Eisenstein the Stalin Prize. Part II, which contains an extended colour sequence in the Agfacolor process captured from the Germans, was completed in 1946 but banned until 1958. Stalin was reportedly displeased by its negative depiction of the Oprichniki, Ivan’s secret police; Eisenstein was officially denounced for having “betrayed his ignorance of historical fact.” Part III, to be entirely in colour, was never completed. Eisenstein died of a heart attack in 1948, at the age of 50. “A spectacle unlike any other ... As much a ballet or an opera or a moving painting (or a mutant kabuki show) as it is a movie” (J. Hoberman). Part I: B&W, 35mm, in Russian with English subtitles. 96 mins.