Eisenstein - The Sound Years (Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 & 2, Alexander Nevsky) - Criterion Collection
by Sergei M. Eisenstein, Dmitri Vasilyev
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DVD details
Actor: Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, Mikhail Nazvanov, Mikhail Zharov, Nikolai Cherkasov, Serafima BirmanDirector: Dmitri Vasilyev, Sergei M. Eisenstein
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: Russian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Box set, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 292 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-04-24
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
DVD Reviews of Eisenstein - The Sound Years (Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 & 2, Alexander Nevsky) - Criterion Collection
DVD Review: Badly Dated "Classics"
Summary: 2 Stars
I realize that most people regard Eisenstein as a god of Soviet cinema, but let me just say that these three films are terribly crude and simplistic. The worst of the three is Ivan Part 2. The "acting" (a generous term for this film) consists of rolling eyes and glacial stares. The plot and dialogue are every bit as bad as those in a Cecil B. DeMille epic. Alexander Nevsky isn't much better. This is clearly a propoganda film and it's just as simplistic as Ivan 2. The German characters in particular are so crudely drawn that most of the time you just sit laughing. The film is so bad that it becomes an unintended comedy. As for Prokofiev's "celebrated" music, it matches the film for bombast. The best of the three films is Ivan Part I since it was impacted the least by Stalin's propoganda machine. It's also heavy handed and simplistic but at least the subject matter and Eisentein's methodology are close to each and the film isn't too far over the top.
Every one should see these films at least once just to know what the "experts" are talking about. However, it is impossible to make the case these are mature and complex films about the human condition. Eisestein's reputation was born during the first half of the 20th century when the Soviet Union was viewed by some people as a grand and hopeful experiment. For them, Eisenstein is the representative of a lost utopia. For the rest of us, these are just boring and overated films.
DVD Review: richest film ever
Summary: 5 Stars
Eisenstein's last film is his most visually dense, with every shot and costume and motion and set immaculately composed and every cut creating deeper resonance for the image that came before it. This is the cinematic equivalent of opera, weird and stylized and extravagant and completely un-real... it creates its own set of rules that have very little to do with the conventional rules of film. That's why it's my favorite film, but that's also why a lot of people are bored/disoriented by it. DVD Review: Eisentein and Stalin
Summary: 5 Stars
Three of the great films of Sergei Eisenstein, Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible and the Boyar's Plot are both remarkable evocations of their historical eras and of the times in which they were written. It is especially in the increasingly suspicious atmosphere of Ivan that one can begin to appreciate why Stalin eventually stopped further work - it was definitely too close to home!
Three great classic films well reproduced in this edition.
DVD Review: Ivan the Terrible
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a classic from which any student or teacher of film can learn. Eisenstein takes "historial license" to extremes, but it makes a great landmark.
Cost-wise - a bargain
DVD Review: Eisenstein The Sound Years
Summary: 5 Stars
From the cinematography to the set design, costumes to character detail, Eisenstein's operatic sound epics are world-class examples of film as high art, with vigorous storytelling adding to the dazzling, still unparalleled craftsmanship of his historic handiwork. "Nevsky," made in 1938, revived the director's flagging career, and earned him a spot as head of Mosfilm Studios. Stalin was less pleased with Part II of "Ivan," especially with its allusions to his use of secret police and unflattering portrayal of a leader in distress. Both "Nevsky" and "Ivan" star the chiseled, charismatic Cherkasov (a sort of Russian Gary Cooper), and boast magnificent set pieces: a battle on a frozen lake involving thousands of extras in "Nevsky," and an orgiastic feast (rendered in color) in "Ivan." You'd never expect cinema this lavish or lively outside classic Hollywood, but here it is, courtesy of an idealistic Communist in full command of his actors and material.
Description of Eisenstein - The Sound Years (Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 & 2, Alexander Nevsky) - Criterion Collection
Sergei Eisenstein, long regarded as a pioneer of film art, changed cinematic strategies halfway through his career. Upon returning from Hollywood and Mexico in the late 1930s, he left behind the densely edited style of celebrated silents like Battleship Potemkin and October, turning instead to historical sources, contradictory audiovisuals, and theatrical sets for his grandiose yet subversive sound-era work. This trio of rousing action epics reveals a deeply unsettling portrait of the Soviet Union under Stalin, and provided battle-scene blueprints for filmmaking giants from Laurence Olivier in Henry V to Akira Kurosawa in Seven Samurai.A biography of the first czar of Russia was the final movie project of the great Sergei Eisenstein's life. It would be his undoing, as Stalin was not pleased with part II of this epic. But Ivan the Terrible, Part I still stands as a magnificent, rich, and strange achievement. This is a "composed" film to make Hitchcock look slapdash; every frame is arranged with the eye of a painter or choreographer, the mise-en-sc?ne so deliberately artificial that even the actors' bodies become elements of style. (They complained about contorting themselves to fit Eisenstein's designs.) If you don't believe movies can be art, this could be (and has been) dismissed as ludicrous. But Eisenstein's command of light and shadow becomes its own justification, as the fascinating court intrigue plays out in a series of dynamic, eye-filling scenes. This is not a political theorist, but a director drunk on pure cinema.
Part II continues with the struggle for power and the use of secret police, a controversial segment that caused the film to be banned by Stalin in 1946 (the film was not released until 1958). The predominantly black-and-white film features a banquet dance sequence in color. Obviously the two parts must be viewed as a whole to be fully appreciated. Many film historians consider this period in Eisenstein's career less interesting than his silent period because of a sentimental return to archaic forms (characteristic of Soviet society in the '30s and '40s). Perhaps it was just part of his maturity.
Alexander Nevsky (1939), Eisenstein's landmark tale of Russia thwarting the German invasion of the 13th century, was wildly popular and quite intentional, given the prevailing Nazi geopolitical advancement and destruction at the time. It can still be viewed as a masterful use of imagery and music, with the Battle on the Ice sequence as the obvious highlight. Unfortunately, the rest of the film pales in comparison. A great score by Prokofiev was effectively integrated by the Russian filmmaker, but stands on its own merit as well.
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