Ivan the Terrible, Part 1, produced in 1944, is a film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and it was made in 1944. The film has a second part, but it received negative criticism because Stalin believed Eisenstein was criticizing his actions and his policies through the use of the characters in the film. In the first part of Ivan the Terrible, Ivan parallels Stalin through his actions and ideas.
Eisenstein is well known as a director because of his successful transition from silent films to films with sound, a feat that not many were able to accomplish. One of his films that we watched earlier in Russian Cinema was Battleship Potemkin. It was interesting to see a film from Eisenstein’s silent film era and a film from one of his films with sound because there is a distinct difference between the two eras. In Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein used a montage technique that involved quick transitions from scene to scene. This kept the action and plot moving quickly. In Ivan the Terrible, I did not notice the montage technique employed by Eisenstein as much as I did in Battleship Potemkin. As a result of this, I found the film to be slow paced and not as interesting as Battleship Potemkin. I do not know why the montage technique is not as prevalent in Ivan the Terrible, but I would think it is because the presence of the sound allows for more to be said with dialogue which substitutes for the action in Eisenstein’s silent films. After watching both films, I believe that Eisenstein was more successful as a director of silent films.
Ivan himself is another reason why I did not enjoy Ivan the Terrible as much as I did Battleship Potemkin. Nikolai Cherkasov, the actor who played Ivan, was dramatic to the point where I found him obnoxious at times, which is a criticism that pertains to most of the cast of Ivan the Terrible. Ivan also seems to be both a positive and negative force in this film. He is a positive leader for the goals he wants to accomplish in Russia, but he is negative because he has an inability to do what is necessary to accomplish his goals. One of Ivan’s goals is to reduce the power of the Boyars, who actively try to resist Ivan, yet he takes very little action throughout the course of the film. Towards the end of part one he decides to seize their estates. In another scene, where Ivan is on his deathbed, he asks everyone present to support his son when he dies. However, no one vows to support Ivan’s son. Ivan gets better, but he does not act as I would expect someone would who will become known as Ivan the Terrible. To be truly terrible, I would have expected him to have all of the Boyars who resisted him arrested or executed by his guards, but he fails to do this. After watching the film I felt that Ivan was not a firm leader.
It's definitely a film one tends to have a strong reaction to--whether that be a positive or a negative one. I tend to like the way Eisenstein has the actors using their entire bodies and holding facial expressions almost as though their masks.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's no doubt that he's experimenting with techniques other than montage here (such as working with the idea of image memory, detailed sets, and lots of work with shadows--just to name a few).