The Red Right Hand
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IVAN THE TERRIBLE (Part I & II)

Sergei Eisenstein

Part I
*****
5/5

Ivan the Terrible, Sergei Eisenstein's consummate work, is an intense historical portrait of the life of the 16th century tsar who clashed with the Boyars and the Church and advanced Russia's position as an empire. Conceived as a trilogy and initially championed by Stalin, the project took a controversial turn over the changed depiction of the leader in Part II, and Part III was never made. Heavy on furs and long, billowing cloaks, Part I is an iconoclastic departure from the director's polemical, montage milestones with its exaggerated, Expressionistic approach derived from the stylised artifice of opera, Japanese Kabuki theatre and shadow and puppet plays. And in moving beyond his trademark staccato technique, Eisenstein created an absorbing and opulent work that is a monument to stylistic method pushed to its logical extreme.

(1944)
USSR  B/W   94 mins


Part II
****
4/5

This second part of director Sergei Eisenstein's intended trilogy was completed in early 1946, by which time Eisenstein was recuperating from a heart attack. Emphasising the personal over the public aspect of the tsar's life, the film was shown to Eisenstein's ultimate boss, Stalin, who banned it because Ivan's bodyguard and the secret service were portrayed like the “Ku Klux Klan and Ivan himself was… weak and indecisive, somewhat like Hamlet.” The film remained unshown until 1958, by which time Eisenstein had been dead for ten years. Admittedly less accessible than its predecessor, Part II is confined almost exclusively to dark interiors and even features a startling sequence that includes the director's only colour footage. As in Part I and to its credit, it frowns upon unnecessary camera movement.

(1946)
USSR  B/W   81 mins