IVAN THE TERRIBLE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: How better to start April than getting
out of the way Eisenstein's great quasi-historical pseudo-
epic IVAN THE TERRIBLE (Parts I and II)? You won't learn
much history but you will be able to tell people you've seen
it.
It has come time to review another undiscovered classic of early film. This one shows up on public television every once in a long while but has been completely forgotten by anyone who doesn't watch PBS. The film is really two Soviet films by Serge Eisenstein, IVAN THE TERRIBLE (Part I) and IVAN THE TERRIBLE (Part II). It is difficult to decide if this is really one film or two. On one hand, when Part I ends it has more loose ends than a golf ball with the skin peeled off. About all that is tied up is the current sentence. Talk about leaving room for a sequel! Eisenstein doesn't just leave ROOM, he leaves the whole house! An historical note on Eisenstein: he appears to be the only Jew revered by the Soviets since Karl Marx. Apparently he hid his religion by not asking to leave.
As with most films about conflict, the IVANs tell the story of the unending struggle between pretty people and ugly people, with ugly people being the bad guys. (This struggle may be more recent than we tend to think. In Dickens's time it was more a struggle of people with funny names such as Twist and Nickleby against people with ugly names such as Mr. Scrooge or Miss Zits.) It is only with the more realistic Schwarzenegger and Stallone films of the 1980s that the good guys are ugly too (and in Stallone's case they are making up for lost time). IVAN THE TERRIBLE is the story of how after an ugly becomes Czar he tries to run Russia for the peasants, all of whom are pretty. From a distance Ivan looks ugly: his hair is greasy and slicked down and he looks like he probably has fleas. But it turns out Ivan may not be ugly after all; it may be a plot by his aunt who has a face like a corn-grinding stone. It was probably she who put the Penzoil in his Vitalis.
The film opens with Ivan's coronation, which is more long and expensive than it is interesting, but then that is true of a lot of Russian films. They were made that way to prove to the world that Communism works so well that they can afford to waste film. But you know that Ivan is in big trouble because the place is just teeming with *ugly* people. There are a few pretty people who are saying loyal sorts of things, but there are far more uglies and they are not at all happy that Ivan is being crowned. Be warned, however, that some of the pretty people may well turn out to be villains. You will know this is happening when the camera starts showing them in unflattering close-ups.
Following the coronation there is a reception and banquet that turns out to be the funniest meal on screen since Blake Edwards's THE PARTY, except I guess it came before. During the course of a one-hour meal:
1. people plot against Ivan,
2. Ivan's best friend announces he cannot support Ivan and exiles himself,
3. there is a peasants' revolt where they burn the outskirts of the city,
4. the peasants storm the palace,
5. Ivan fights with one peasant in hand-to-hand combat,
6. Ivan announces he is going to be the People's Czar, in spite of the
fact he is ugly,
7. the peasants return to their homes, the Mongol ambassador arrives and demands tribute,
8. and Ivan declares war on the Mongols.
And you never get to see the dessert.
The second film has some definite stylistic differences from the first film. During the course of making the two films, Eisenstein became more anti-West as time went along. By the time he made the second film the anti-foreigner sentiment is obvious. He puts much more bright light at the bottom of the screen so the subtitles will be almost impossible to read. At the same time, this makes the plot more complex and harder to follow.
I wouldn't say this about Part I, but IVAN THE TERRIBLE (Part II) ranks up there with the original PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, the original HELL'S ANGELS, THE RETURN OF DRACULA, and SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT as a film that suddenly goes from black-and-white to color in the middle for no obvious reason. It is quite a shock. Presumably the Soviet economy took an upturn during the shooting. Unfortunately, the blues on the colored stock have been lost to time but the reds are somewhere between vibrant and oppressive, much like Ivan himself. Part II has enough songs to rank almost as a musical and some odd dance numbers, including one around a peasant dressed like the Statue of Liberty.
The two film together are fairly long but the plot is not difficult to follow because it moves so slowly. Other than the banquet scene, in any given fifteen-minute stretch you can be reasonably sure that not much as happened. In fact, even in two films about Ivan, we learn almost nothing about the man or anything he did. The snail-paced plot instead gives plenty of time for meaningful looks and poses. It is as if every frame was intended to be a great--if not very realistic--painting.
In all, I would say that IVAN THE TERRIBLE is two classic films you may want to see some time. (Mediocre classics don't get ratings on the -4 to +4 scale.)
Mark R. Leeper
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