Ivan The Terrible - Part 1 And Part 2 - The Boyars Plot [1944] [DVD]

While the movie itself is a landmark in the history of cinema, the two DVDs released by Eureka are terrible. The picture quality is way below average: a lot of damage is visible, scratches, tears etc. Even worse, the picture shows very heavy ghosting, which is especially annoying in scenes with fast movement. Unfortunately, the subtitles are not only burnt in into the picture and can't be removed, but are also most of the time barely readable since they are written in white letters which don't contrast much against the b/w picture. Finally, the only "extra" on the discs are some (written!) notes on the historical background
So dont' buy this poor set! If you're lucky and own a code-free player, get the U.S. Criterion release instead: it is far superior in every aspect.

IVAN THE TERRIBLE

This film really shouldn't work, should it? The story of a meglomaniac, shot in black and white (and a bit of colour), with stagey acting, ropey sound and subtitles? Yet it is one of the most gripping and haunting films ever made.

Essentially, it tells the story of a Russian Tsar who struggles to unite his country and expand her boundaries; in imposing his will on internal and external enemies he descends into paranoia and cruelty. It is a psychological and political thriller, and a moral tale (try to force people to your will and you end up alone and mad). It might seem odd to us now that such a figure could be offered as a hero for the Russians during the Second World War; and the ironic parallel between the lives of Ivan and that of Stalin was sufficiently close to cost the director his life.

Filmed in severely restricted circumstances, the underground locations give a claustrophobic intensity to the film. Eistenstein makes full use of a range of lighting techniques, sharp contrasts, shadows and candlelight. The actors, struggling in the cold to meet his demands to take up ever more uncomfortable positions, deliver extraordinary images and astonishing performances, especially Pavel Kadochnikov as the Stan Laurelesque half-wit, Seraphima Birman as the Auntie from Hell and Nikolai Cherkasov as Ivan. If this man had been an American he would have strolled off with an Oscar. The stye of acting may seem melodramatic, even unintentionally funny. Just remind yourself that there are other ways to tell a story apart from pseudo-realism, and these guys are totally committed.

Bear with this film. After 10-15 minutes, you will be utterly gripped until the end of Part 2.

Oh, and the music is by Prokoviev.

This double film is a masterpiece in many ways. It took two years of research before starting to come out of thin air and being filmed. The first part came out in 1944 and the second part in 1945. This means the research was done when the USSR was down under the feet of the nazis. The first part came out when the tide had turned and the Russians were already advancing in Poland. The second part came out after the fall of Berlin or close before. The political meaning at the time was clear. The first part was singing the praise of the man who unified Russia, just like it was necessary in the war years to reunify the USSR for the last push to Berlin. The second part is slightly different since it was the time when Ivan the Terrible had to face the plots and conspiracy from the Boyars, the nobles and the top echelon church people and he had to defeat them with wise schemes more than just plain violence. That was of course essential after the war to face the various groups of people who could have spoken out of unity now the outside danger was eliminated. But we have to go beyond this immediate and historical value of the film when it was shot. It is a masterpiece because Eisenstein uses rather simple means to produce an epic film whose every scene is poignant, powerful, impressive, etc. Eisenstein uses all the possibilities his know-how and experience provide him with. Of course he uses black and white to play on shade, shadows and contrast so that some scenes are frightening and quite in the line of the big masters of horror of the late 20s, Fritz Lang or Murnau. He uses the body language and the composition of the scenes and setting to make every single square centimeter meaningful and active. The hands, the faces, the bodies are among the best actors of the film along with the actors themselves, quite in the line of what Eisenstein was doing in the 20s, but even better because he was able to use their lips in order to make them speak. The soundtrack is prodigious. He composes a real symphony with voices used in the most dramatic and expressive way, with all kinds of sounds and noise that give a real depth to the pictures on the screen and the voices of the actors, and finally the outstanding music score by Prokofiev: probably one of the best film music ever and that music totally avoids the repetitiveness of the music of the old silent films to create a fully developed universe of its own that amplifies the voices and the sounds and noises. That creates the epic atmosphere the story itself needs. What's more, in the second part, the use of color for two reels of the film shows the force of the black and white reels, and at the same time shows how Eisenstein can use the color of these reels in order to create a different but similar contrast, this time centered on red dominating the various other colors that are essentially, white, black and yellow. The red of these reels becomes the expression of life and at the same time of some oppressiveness coming from some danger that red also designates (and surprisingly enough we cannot find any "revolutionary" meaning to that red, but we may be missing some inside meaning in the USSR of the time). The films have been digitally re-mastered but not in any way changed: we still have the jerky pictures of those days and the blurry sound track of before digital sound (even the music that could have been re-recorded). And it is good because we really have the impression to watch an old film from the 50s. By the way do not believe what the historical presentation of the bonuses tell you, in English, at least in my edition, because it is purely there to pacify those who may see Stalin behind Ivan.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID