Ivan the Terrible, Part II

Ivan the Terrible, Part II (Ivan Groznyy. Skaz vtoroy: Boyarskiy zagovor)
Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein
Written by Sergei M. Eisenstein
1958/USSR
Mosfilm/TsOKS
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#184 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] We had hoped that you were ruler in your Kingdom and that you yourself ruled, and that you yourself looked after your Kingdom’s honour and your Kingdom’s advantages and that is why we wanted to deal such matters with you. But it appears that other people rule for you. They are not just people, they are trading peasants and they do not care about our Ruler’s heads and our honours and the advantages of our lands, instead seeking just their own trade advantages. And you are in your virginal state like some old unmarried female. And you should have not believed anyone who even though he was aware of our matters had betrayed us. — Letter from Ivan IV of Russia (the “Terrible”) to Elizabeth I of England[/box]

Stalin was not a fan of this movie.  I could have died without seeing it again.

The movie takes up where Part I left off with the same cast of characters minus those slain in the first film.  Ivan has been recalled to Moscow where the boyars and clergy continue to plot against him.  His prime enemy is his own aunt Efrosinia, who wants to put her feeble-minded son Vladimir on the throne.

Ivan suspects that it was Efronsinia that poisoned his wife in the first film and exacts an intricate revenge.  After he defeats Efrosinia and company, Russia is ready to take on the rest of the world.

This contains the same weird and stylized acting style as in the first film.  It might almost be a silent movie for the amount of facial contortions employed.  If you can get beyond that, it’s one exquisite frame after another.  I find those in the first film more memorable, however.  Eisenstein filmed two sequences in a two-strip color process.  I prefer the black-and-white.

The film was made between 1945 and 1949 but Stalin supressed it, presumably because the increasingly dictatorial Ivan reminded him too much of himself.  It was finally released during Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign.

Clip – no subtitles but they aren’t really needed