IVAN THE TERRIBLE (II) POLITICS, THEMES, VISUALITY, MOTIFS

Ivan the Terrible Part I  Deals with the idea of absolute power granted by God in order to “gather lands” and restore Russia’s grandeur.  Events: Ivan’s early years, coronation, marriage and death of the wife, Kurbski’s treason, victory over the Tartars, Ivan’s demonstrative reclusion and the people of Russia pleading him to return  Released in 1945, approved by critics and by Stalin, received Stalin award.

Shooting Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible Part II: The Film and Politics  December 1945: Part II completed and submitted to Mosfilm authorities.  January 1945: Part I released in Moscow.  January 1946: Part I receives Stalin Prize.  February 1946: Part II reedited and submitted to Committee on Film Affairs for approval. At celebratory party Eisenstein has a heart attack.

The Film and Politics  February 1946: Film viewed by Artistic Council.  March 1946: Central Committee prohibits release of Part II because of its “ahistorical and inartistic qualities” and Ivan being “weak like some Hamlet.”  August and September 1946: Central Committee criticism made public.  February 1947: Eisenstein and Cherkasov have interview with Stalin. Permission given to remake Part II and complete Part III.

The Film and Politics  November 1947: United Nations approves creation of State of Israel.  Stalin’s antisemitic campaign against “cosmopolitism” (Eisenstein was a member of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee).  January 1948: Jewish actor and theatre director Solomon Mikhoels, president of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, murdered by NKVD in Minsk, the start of the “struggle with cosmopolitanism.”  11 February 1948: Eisenstein dies after a heart attack.  March 1953: Stalin dies.  1 September 1958: Ivan the Terrible, Part II finally released.

Ivan The Terrible Part II  Juxtaposition of images relying on viewer’s memory;  Complexity and subtleness of editing;  Change of plans, elaborate camerawork;  Visual representation and symbolism based on archetypes, painting, animals;  Theatre and biomechanics;  Sound and music; frescoes as visual parallels to Prokofiev’s music;  Enclosed space and dream-like quality, as opposed to the open horizon, prevalence of outdoor scenes and “realism” in Aleksandr Nevski

Psychoanalysis

Symbolism: Single Eye

Dead Vladimir Ivan on deathbed

Motifs: Child, Goblet, Swans, etc.

Visual “Rhymes”

Underlying eroticism (revealed in the sketches)

Visuality  Kurbsky between good and evil, light and darkness  Geometry: lines and shapes

Theatricality  Theatre inside the film: a mystery play about three infant martyrs in the fiery furnace.

Fiodor Basmanov replacing Anastasia: a sinister turn

Eisenstein’s drawing of Ivan for Part II

Koschei The Deathless (in Russian folklore, sovereign of dark powers)

Andei Tarkovski about Ivan The Terrible “There is a film, Ivan The Terrible by Eisenstein, that is as remote as possible from the principles of direct observation, - not only is the film as a whole a hieroglyph, it entirely consists of a series of hieroglyphs, large, small and tiny, there is not a single detail in it that is not saturated with authorial design or intention.”