biopic is wonderful to behold visually and for its camp.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Though Sergei Eisenstein’s (”The Battleship Potemkin”-1925/”Alexander
Nevsky”-1938) history lesson about the 16th-century despot Ivan Grozny
— Ivan the Terrible — is essentially a bogus one, the historical melodramatic
biopic is wonderful to behold visually and for its camp (the stagy acting
and bold expressions give way to comedy rather than drama). It’s a work
of great detail, compositions, and visual spectacle that foregoes for the
most part Eisenstein’s principles of Montage that made him internationally
famous. Eisenstein made many sketches for every scene and when the cameras
rolled he brought those visions to fruition in the filming. It was filmed
during the middle of the war from 1943 to 1944 and was released in 1945,
at the Alma Ata studios in Central Asia, which came under attack by the
Nazi war planes. It was meant to be a trilogy but only two parts were completed,
as Eisenstein died at 50 before he could begin work on the third part.
Stalin approved the first part but objected to the second part (the way
the monster was portrayed bore too close a resemblance) and it wasn’t released
until 1958, ten years after Eisenstein’s death.
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The first part deals with the charismatic hammy Nikolai Cherkassov
playing Ivan IV (1530-1584), archduke of Moscow, coming to power by crowning
himself Tsar at the age of 16 in an effort to unite a weakened and divided
country and reclaim territory held by foreigners. He’s faced with foreign
enemies such as the Tartars, Livonians, and Germans, and faced with internal
strife from the Boyars, a princely family that objected to his despotic
rule as being unprecedented. He further angers the nobles when he goes
against tradition and marries a Russian girl, Anastasia Romanovna (Lyudmila
Tselikovskaya), instead of the usual foreign princess.
There are spectacular black-and-white scenes of the pomp and ceremony
and underlying court intrigue in his coronation, and the passion felt in
his baroque wedding to Anastasia. What follows is his long but successful
campaign against the Tartars in Kazan that is waged by his ally Prince
Kurbsky (Mikhail Nazvanov), whereby the Tsar gets all the credit. Later
the Tsar becomes ill and seems to be dying, but mysteriously recovers and
initiates a campaign against his enemies. The Boyars are singled out for
persecution, as they are suspected of being the conspirators who poisoned
his wife; they are led by his insiduous aunt Euphrosinia (Serafima Birman),
who refuses his order to swear allegiance to his one-year-old son. His
aunt, also, schemes with the warrior prince Kurbsky to betray the Tsar
and back her feeble-minded son Vladimir in his bid to be king. The Tsar
underestimates his enemies and instead of eliminating them continues his
policies to rid Russia of foreigners by waging war in the Baltic with Prince
Kurbsky leading his forces and in the Crimea with a so-called nobody nobleman
Basmanov (Amvrosi Buchma) leading his troops. They both lose in battles
taking place off camera; their loses are blamed on the interference from
the Boyars. To live for another day, the Tsar goes on a self-imposed exile
in Alexandrov, vowing he will return with the petition of the Muscovites
(playing politics that he will get the common-man behind him) and bring
glory and greatness to his rule by eliminating all those who oppose him.
The Tsar plans to regain complete control of Russia by confiscating the
wealth of the aristocratic Boyars and by merging the proletariat into a
loyal and fierce army, receiving supplies from a secret deal he made with
England to adequately arm his fighting forces.