Ivan the Terrible: The Film Companion

by Joan Neuberger

Eisenstein's last, unfinished masterpiece is a strange, complex and haunting film. Commissioned personally by Stalin in 1941, the project placed Eisenstein in the paradoxical situation of having to glorify Stalinist tyranny in the image of Ivan, without sacrificing his own artistic and political integrity - or his life. Drawing on sources that include Eisenstein's personal archive and the memoirs of those involved in Ivan's making, Joan Neuberger's vivid account reveals how, in almost impossible circumstances, he managed to create a film of cinematic innovation, intellectual depth and political critique. She reveals the film to be both a great work of art and a product of the time and place in which it was made.

Genres: Film

160 pages, Paperback

First published December 4, 1999

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5?

[Jared Perovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conscience-stricken Ivan (14)
Contradiction on display (26)
Political themes of land, unity, and sedition (28)
Hiding in plain sight: subterfuge and surface narrative (30-31)
The Look of the film, "repeated close-ups" and "the glaring and shifting eyes, the sharp turns of faces" (31)
State as abstract ideal (32)
Blind up close, yet far-sighted (40-41)
Samoderzhavie/edinoderzhavie: independent state and one-man rule (43)
Positive valence of Nietzsche (43)
Representing the people (44)
The oath (46, 41)
Dividing in the name of unity (51)
Fedor the friend or Filipp the priest? (51)
THE PROLOGUE: All transitions are traumatic (54)
Murder without touching a weapon (42, 55)
Nebuchadnezzar and the fiery furnace (56)
Alexei Basmanov's Guilt (68)
There are no ends, except for means (74)
Loneliness in power (73) from edinoderzhavie into odinochestvo
Centralization (76)
Paternalistic Stalin (78-79)
A film without easy answers (80)
The unconscious (pre-logical) in art (85-6)
Doorway as birth canal (86)
Ersatz fathers, childhood transition (87)
Wife's role, ersatz mother (88)
New brothers (89)
New children (90)
Lost boys of the Oprichniki (92)
Gender roles change (92-93)
Cross-dressing in the film (94)
Essence as absence (100)
One-eyed (106)
New identities, even new genders, are depressingly similar to the old ones (127)

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great to read while watching the movie. The movie is very esoteric, and the artistry rich. This is an excellent perspective of the complex film by Eisenstein. The movie can never be fully understood but less so without this helpful tool.