Ivan the Terrible, Part 1 (1944) - Uncomfortably Stalinist, Visually Astounding

 

I know that I usually start reviews with a personal anecdote of some sort, but this one is kind of a head scratcher. My only real ties in my life to the Soviet Union are just a lifelong, morbid fascination with the Cold War era and rocking a hammer and sickle pin on my backpack as middle schooler into punk rock. However, I do like a lot of Soviet era cartoons which are a special kind of surreal and I really like some film movements of Soviet states on the fringe, and what Soviet films I’ve seen often have very strong and striking visuals. So when I saw that Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 and 2 were on Max, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to do something different for this blog even if it might be a bit shorter than my typical review.

Obviously, the biggest and most valid criticism of the film is how deeply unsubtle it is in most ways, but particularly when it comes to defending and propagating the ideals of Stalinism. As a member of the left, I’m well aware there are factions that still defend Stalin, but left or right I believe the bulk of people out there agree he was a bad dude with a pretty rotten interpretation of Marxism. So if you know his history, it is easy to get squeamish about the heroic portrayal of Ivan and the very Stalin-esque virtues he signals even if Eisenstein himself likely didn’t really hold those views and would sometimes try and be a bit subversive about it (come back to read the eventual review of Part 2!)

However, the film is absolutely breathtaking to look at. The cavernous and ornate environments, stark shadows adorning nearly every shot in the film in a way Hitchcock or film noir could only dream, epic and sometimes unusual camera placements. This world primarily takes place indoors and through speeches, but still seems massive and almost otherworldly. The performances were often criticized, however I don’t speak the language so I can only judge off body language which actually became one of my favorite parts of the film, how stylized and strange and surreal everybody moved and posed at times as if sometimes becoming temporary statues, I absolutely believe that had to be a deliberate choice and I eventually came to think of it as the right one. Nikolay Cherkasov is striking in the lead, he commands the screen every time he is on it. And just because it is Stalinist in nature doesn’t mean the film has abandoned the revolutionary leftist zeal, spending much of the time pitting Ivan as a representative of the people against the monied higher classes attempting to rule the country to their whims, which is a populist sentiment that can transcend Marxism.

There was a lot of genuine artistry in the world of propaganda films, especially in World War II. Some of my favorite British cinema ever was their propaganda efforts often aimed at priming America to enter WWII such as some of the works by Powell and Pressburger such as The 49^th Parallel, and later there were many strong American examples too from cinema down to Captain America comics and Disney cartoons. The strong anti-Soviet bias driven into even younger generations of Americans like myself who was born about a month before the Soviet Union formally dissolved I think leads a lot of them to feel weird about partaking in and celebrating the great parts of Soviet art culture but I hope people watch things like Ivan the Terrible and see what a masterpiece of direction it is.