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Rating:  -
Sergei Eisenstien is a genius. This film remains, along with Riefenstahl, Hitchcock, DeMille, and Coppola, one of the best examples of film genre ever produced.
Rating:  -
As always, Criterion gives the works a splendid treatment, beautiful transfer. Supplemental materials are excellent, seperate short documentaries on the three films, done by top film scholars (like David Bordwell of the University of Wisconsin). One thing it lacks is an accompanying commentary track for the films themselves, done by those same scholars. That I would have liked, as they serve as a film school lecture on the work, and am always a little disappointed whenever Criterion leaves them out.
Rating:  -
Reportedly filmed it Stalin's personal suggestion, Part I glorified the 16th century prince who overcame the power of Russia's feudal lords and the treachery of his own friends and family to forge the Russian nation... Although Ivan resorted to cruel and often repugnant means to achieve his goals, the end results, at least in Eisenstein's eyes, made the means acceptable...
Condemned by some critics as unbearably slow and ponderous, Part I of "Ivan the Terrible" is regarded by others as a towering work of genius... It is easy to understand why Stalin, one of the most ruthless of leaders, approved the first half of the epic; it is equally easy to see why Part II, completed in 1946, was banned by an irate government...
Far less effective than Part I, it shows Peter becoming increasingly insane, overwhelmed by hate, bitterness, and doubt as to the legitimacy of his mission... Eisenstein suffered a heart attack on the day he completed editing the film, and he died in 1948... For a decade thereafter his completed masterwork remained under official proscription; it received its first screening in 1958, five years after Stalin's death...
Rating: -
I'll let others debate just how great a film Alexander Nevsky is; I don't know. But it certainly is one great propaganda film. It was made in 1938 when Stalin and Hitler were thinking about dancing on each other's grave. The story is how the Order of the Teutonic Knights invaded Russia in the 13th century and were defeated by the bravery of the Russian people under the inspired leadership of Prince Alexander Nevsky. The heart of the movie is the great battle to defeat the Germans; everything before the battle really is prologue, and everything after is a quick tidying up.
The knights are menacing and scary: armored men on big armored horses, wearing white, flowing robes with crosses and featureless helmets. They look like merciless automatons. The Russians are brave people of the soil, determined to protect Mother Russia and wanting only inspired leadership. They find this in Prince Nevsky.
The great battle between these two forces, held in the depth of winter, is the movie. The battle goes on and on, but you never get lost and never get bored. Eisenstein moves from masses of hacking, slashing soldiers to the actions of individuals in the melees, individuals whom we've come to know. He sets up the battle by having Nevsky explain clearly to his commanders (and to us) exactly what he wants them to do...let the charging wedge of knights penetrate his main force, then hold them at whatever cost, while he attacks from both flanks. At the start of the battle the Russians are massed with long pikes awaiting the knights. In the distance across the snow we see a long line of mounted knights, all with their white robes flowing in the wind. They gradually move faster and faster, growing larger and larger on the screen, until they crash into the pikes. The Russians give way in places creating corridors within their ranks where the knights are forced, and then all hell breaks loose.
The fighting is brutal, and not just with pikes, swords and arrows. Long hooks are used to yank the knights from their horses, then foot soldiers attack with heavy axes to smash through the armor. There are no great gouts of blood and spilled intestines, and this is long before Computer Generated Overkill, but there is no doubt about how brutal the fighting is.
At one point Prince Nevsky engages in one-to-one sword combat with the Master of the Teutonic Knights, humiliating him with his skill and then defeating and capturing him. The priests who accompanied the knights are all shown as venal opportunists, and all are slaughtered by the Russian fighters when the knights' camp is overrun. The Germans retreat, the Russians break through, and the remains of the German knights gather for a last stand on the ice. This is one of the great scenes in movies. As the Germans gather, the ice begins to break. The knights and their foot soldiers slip and crash into the water, some try to hold onto the ice and are overturned, some try to flee but the cracking ice catches them. We see helmeted men sinking below the surface, and then just their flowing white robes trailing behind them out of sight. It's something to see.
Throughout the movie Eisentstein creates great visual images. Some are vistas of snow and mountains, some gatherings of soldiers around a camp, some corpses strewn on a battlefield, some just two or three people talking. By modern standards this might sound arty, but I quickly became immersed in this style. It gave a kind of dignity and weight to the movie.
Eisenstein had Sergei Prokovief, one of the great composers of the 20th century, write the score for the movie. It is hugely effective, in my view.
Is this a great movie? I really don't know. But I'll bet Goebbels hated it.
The DVD is from Criterion's Eisenstein: The Sound Years which includes Ivan the Terrible parts I and II. The transfer looked great. There are several extras which I haven't listen to yet.
Rating: -
This box set is one of the Criterion Collection's best releases yet. In this set are 3 films.
Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Grozny) parts 1 and 2.
Alexander Nevsky is based on the true story of 13th century Prince Alexander Nevsky who helped fend off Teutonic (German) soldiers out of what is now Russia.
The film has an excellent score composed for the film by Sergei Prokofiev. The acting in the film is also very good also. The film was very popular and was temporarily banned by Stalin after Germany signed a nonagression pact with the Soviet Union.
The film is on disc 1 and has the following special features.
Restoration demonstration, Production stills and storyboard drawings, a multimedia essay by Russel Merrit on Sergei Eisenstein's work with Sergei Prokofiev on the film's score, an feature length essay on the film by David Bordwell, who wrote a book on Eisenstein's films, and there is also stills and dialog from Eisentein's unfinished film, Bezhin Meadow with photos of the film's set.
Ivan the Terrible parts 1 and 2 are the first two parts of an unfinished trilogy. Several scenes of part 3 were filmed but only one scene is known to survive today.
The film follows the life of Tsar Ivan Vassilivich also known as Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Groznyy). He is credited with uniting the people of Russia into a single nation. The first film covers his coronation and a battle that was fought to reclaim lost territory. The film is also very famous and has music by Prokofiev.
The first part on disc 2 has the folloving special features:
The deleted prologue sequence covering part of Ivan's childhood where he witnesses the poisoning murder of his mother and also contains another deleted scene. It also has the surviving fragment of the unfinished part 3 There are also a slide show of production stills and drawings, and an essay on the history of the film.
Part 2 covers the time where Tsar Ivan roots out the traitors who helped poison his wife and executes them.
The film has an excellent Color sequence cofering much of the last 30 minutes of the film. The Agfacolor film stock was captured from the Germans during WWII and was used for this film. The cinematography is really gpood and there is a flashback sequence from the deleted prologue of part 1
Disc 3 also contains an audio essay by Yuri Tsivian on the stunning cinematography of the film.
The set is well worth the $79 if you are a fan of Russian Cinema like I am. This set remains one of my favorites and it is really worth looking into.
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