I saw this very great film many years ago, but was unable to appreciate it. Perhaps some critics who undervalue it and those who praise it too much in their usual academic style influenced me. Perhaps too much has been said that surrounds the film and not the film itself. To me the first part is both theatre and silent cinema. It is all there in the coronation scene of Ivan, and he is simply there to unite a divided Russia, and many are there to oppose him doing so, but beyond that it is the images that count and the composition of the scenes. The composition is very much a theatre space, but the camera is far from theatre, concentrating in close-up, the coins which ceremoniously pour over his head and then shifting to the eyes which in almost silent film fashion express everything. Eisenstein loves, it seems to me, eyes and how they express emotion. Words are hardly necessary. Shock, ecstasy and conniving for power are all shown in a glance and faces are transformed immediately. Heads are often bent forward, accentuating the downward look which can show disdain and contempt immediately. No need for a character to express verbally at all, and the viewer knows everything. This happens in all cinema, but Eisenstein accentuates it to perfection. The final scene as Ivan watches the return of so many to him in a twisted line of people, and Ivan (perhaps now a man full of sorrow) watches head and beard in the foreground is a perfect example of ambiguity reminiscent of Garbo's expression at the end of 'Queen Christina'. Eisenstein can be called baroque, political, an expressionist and all the rest of the critical paraphernalia but for me there is no argument; he creates as no other director creates in a world of his own. A film, plus its second part 'The Boyar's Plot', to be treasured as long as film exists.
Review of Ivan the Terrible, Part I
