Ivan the Terrible, Part II
Ivan the Terrible, Part II • 1h 25m
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein • 1958 • Soviet Union
Starring Nikolai Cherkasov, Serafima Birman, Pavel Kadochnikov
Navigating the deadly waters of Stalinist politics, Eisenstein was able to film two parts of his planned trilogy about the troubled sixteenth-century tsar who united Russia. Visually stunning and powerfully acted, IVAN THE TERRIBLE charts the rise to power and descent into terror of this veritable dictator. Though pleased with the first installment, Stalin detected the portrait in the second film, with its summary executions and secret police, and promptly banned it.
Up Next in Ivan the Terrible, Part II
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Eisenstein’s Visual Vocabulary
IVAN THE TERRIBLE is a densely layered, highly conflicted portrayal of a great historical figure. In this multimedia essay, University of Chicago art-history professor Yuri Tsivian examines how Eisenstein—utilizing psychoanalysis, Japanese woodcuts, and images of Jesus Christ—created one of the m...
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Staging and Performance in IVAN THE T...
Professor David Bordwell explores the “expressive movement” that animates one of Sergei Eisenstein’s boldest experiments in film form, demonstrating how the director draws on the language of dance and painting.
