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Bookmark this pageIvan the Terrible (1944)
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Probably the most enjoyable of all Eisenstein's films, his last work, a projected trilogy of which only two parts were completed. The historical subject - Tsar Ivan's struggle to consolidate the Russian empire, freeing it from Eastern domination and (in Part II) the self-serving interests of the Boyars - is sufficiently removed from the crucial problem (for Eisenstein) of reconciling film theory and political practice for it to work as comic melodrama. Often criticised for its lack of historical truth, the film still holds up as a camp essay in authoritarian paranoia. Cherkassov's contorted performance as Ivan, absurdly stylised though it is, beautifully expresses the conscience of the state torn between absolutism and factionalism, while managing a miraculous integration with a superbly operatic visual style.Author: RM
Cast & crew
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Producer: Sergei Eisenstein
Cast: Nikolai Cherkasov, Serafima Birman, Ludmila Tselikovskaya, Mikhail Nazvanov, Pavel Kadochnikov, Mikhail Zharov, Mikhail Kuznetsov, Vsevolod I Pudovkin full cast
Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers
Duration: 100 mins
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