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Rating:  - a quality product
This DVD reproduction is at a good quality. The image is clear, as the best as you can expect from a movie made 60 years ago. Only a little scratch. From time to time, the picture shacks a bit, but you would not be distracted. Not all the Russian dialogue had been translated into English subtitle, but I had not hard time to understand what the characters' pose and expression meant.
There are two things bothered me a little. The first is the subtitle sometimes blends into the B/W background. The second is even though the picture has been said to be kept as its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, I doubt that the edge has been chopped a little bit. Since I never had a chance to seen the original one, I don't really have a clue to blame the DVD. Over all, this product is a great chance to enjoy this master piece in the 21st century anyway.
Rating: - Superb Eisentein film
During World War II, with Russia in the grip of Stalin and with Hitler at its door, the greatest Russian director of his day, and perhaps ever, joined the greatest Russian actor of his day, to depict the dark and brooding story of the rise and fall of a ruthless Russian Tsar who tyrannized Russia during the 1500s. While the story hardly amounts to movie uplift, the joy and fascination here lies in the details. Straightaway, in episode one, there is perhaps the most amazing movie opening ever filmed, in the coronation of Ivan the Terrible. Those familiar with Theodor Dreyer's "Passion of Joan of Arc" in 1928 will appreciate what fascination can lie in watching the camera cut skillfully from one grotesque image to another in endlessly imaginative ways, almost as if the gargoyles themselves were about to speak. The fascinating imagery proceeds non-stop from there, in the hands of master craftsman and director Sergei Eisenstein, like a medieval masterpiece come to life, though the later segment (part two) did not quite rise to the exceptional quality of part one. A taste of the high production standards is gleaned from a musical score composed by the great classicist Sergei Prokofiev. A very, very Russian production -- dark and grim, but full of amazing levels of interest, just the kind of production spoofed by Woody Allen years later in "Love and Death." Not necessarily to everybody's taste, but a great treat for connoisseurs.
Rating: - Eisenstein's best sound movie
This is a DVD that you can watch over and over again. I rented it a long time ago and really liked it, so I bought the DVD. The cinematography, the acting and Prokifiev's score are all amazing.
Rating: - The Michelangelo of Cinema
For Westerners Ivan the Terrible is in the same mental pocket as such unlovely characters as Rasputin, Vlad the Impaler, and even Joseph Stalin. Although he definitely had a brutal and bloodthirsty side and looked rather creepy, he was also one of RussiaÕ's greatest statesmen (probably because he was so brutal and bloodthirsty and looked so creepy!).
Although depicting the achievements of a Tsar, this film got the go-ahead from the Communist authorities because Comrade Stalin identified with the central character and wanted to encourage patriotism. Eisenstein's ambivalent treatment of the nature of power in Part 2, however, offended Stalin who withdrew persmission to complete what was originally intended to be a trilogy
The two films that we have were made in the aftermath of the defeat of the German invasion as the Russian armies rolled West rather as they had rolled East in Ivan's day when Kazan and Astrakhan had fallen to the rising power of the Russian state.
When I first saw this film, it was a little like the first time I heard "Riders on the Storm" by the Doors: it just completely STOOD OUT from everything else on TV and in the cinema. I was immediately impressed by its intensity and uniqueness.
Every shot and scene are powerfully stylised, every statement emphasised and dramatised. Watching this, you realize how bland, wishy-washy, and sloppy most movies are by comparision. Artistic energy and craftsmanship are never absent for a moment. Nothing is left to chance, nothing is wasted; everything is touched by the central guiding genius. It is dense and muscular, and tense. The scenes have the same gravity and power as the scuptures and paintings of the great Michelangelo.
Some people might be amazed that such artistic heights were reached under a Communist system that repressed free expression, but here in the West we also have our own form of repression, perhaps even more insidious than the whims and dictates of Comrade Stalin. I refer to the pressure of making a buck! This was one pressure that Michelangelo didn't have when the Pope commissioned him to paint the Cistine Chapel, or Eisenstein when Stalin allowed him to make the first two great parts of this triology.
Rating: - Eisenstein's Best
I've seen most of Eisenstein's films and Ivan the Terrible (1,2) is his best. The film is entirely based on history but focuses on the nature of power and the figure of Ivan. Ivan is portrayed in differnt ways. At first he is heroic and made to look like the victim of more evil people than himself. In the second part he struggles to understand himsself and is plagued by self doubt. He's very much like Hamlet in fact. The acting by the extremely tall Cherkasov is just slightly over the top but it suits the Shakesperean quality of the story.. Eisenstein experimented with sevarl techniques to accent the sensation of power and evil that sorrounded Ivan and the murdfer scene in the Cathedral is the culmination. The film was to have featured a third part but Stalin cut the project short, due to the critical character of power that the film had taken on in the 2nd part. It's not for everyone, but for students ot those interested ion the psychological effects of power and dicataors everywhere it's excellent.
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