Ivan the Terrible - Parts 1 & 2
The problem with Ivan the Terrible is it is in sound and anyone who knows Sergei Eisenstein will know that he hated sound!. in fact, he hated it almost as much as John Gilbert.
Basically with Ivan the Terrible Eisenstein has tried to make a silent film with sound. No that's not a contradiction, well not for Eisenstein. Here is a man whose art has passed him by and he has failed to come to terms with it.
The most impressive aspect of Ivan the Terrible is its visual style. At times the lyrical imagery is sublime. However, more often than not the visual elements fail to succeed because they are overlaid by sound which Eisenstein both ignores and neglects to varying degrees. Hence we have a film made in the 1940s which looks 20 years older with acting styles that are even more antiquated.
Eisenstein, along with the likes of Pudovkin, resented the audio component of film because it detracted from the poetry of the visual image, aligning film too closely with drama. Eisenstein concluded the cinema would merely become a series of filmed plays. He obviously believed in his theories but his practical application of these ideas are ham-fisted. In fact, Ivan the Terrible reflects a theatricality that had long been overcome in mainstream American and English cinema. Eisenstein merely uses his actors as props and stages the drama in broad strokes of sweeping gesture and concentrated stares. Not unlike the type of production one would see on the stage.
Eisenstein was truly a poet but by the time he made this film cinema had progressed markedly. There were new and more gifted filmmakers doing more than he was now capable of, embracing the new devices at their disposal and crafting art with a subtlety and novelty. Unfortunately for Eisenstein, he was no longer gifted enough to make the great cinema for which he was known.
Basically with Ivan the Terrible Eisenstein has tried to make a silent film with sound. No that's not a contradiction, well not for Eisenstein. Here is a man whose art has passed him by and he has failed to come to terms with it.
The most impressive aspect of Ivan the Terrible is its visual style. At times the lyrical imagery is sublime. However, more often than not the visual elements fail to succeed because they are overlaid by sound which Eisenstein both ignores and neglects to varying degrees. Hence we have a film made in the 1940s which looks 20 years older with acting styles that are even more antiquated.
Eisenstein, along with the likes of Pudovkin, resented the audio component of film because it detracted from the poetry of the visual image, aligning film too closely with drama. Eisenstein concluded the cinema would merely become a series of filmed plays. He obviously believed in his theories but his practical application of these ideas are ham-fisted. In fact, Ivan the Terrible reflects a theatricality that had long been overcome in mainstream American and English cinema. Eisenstein merely uses his actors as props and stages the drama in broad strokes of sweeping gesture and concentrated stares. Not unlike the type of production one would see on the stage.
Eisenstein was truly a poet but by the time he made this film cinema had progressed markedly. There were new and more gifted filmmakers doing more than he was now capable of, embracing the new devices at their disposal and crafting art with a subtlety and novelty. Unfortunately for Eisenstein, he was no longer gifted enough to make the great cinema for which he was known.
Ivan the Terrible - has a big head
