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Ivan the Terrible, Part I

7.3 / 10

100 minutes

1944-11-11

Russian

SU

Actors :

Nikolai Cherkasov, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, Serafima Birman, Mikhail Nazvanov, Mikhail Zharov, Amvrosi Buchma, Mikhail Kuznetsov, Pavel Kadochnikov, Andrei Abrikosov, Alexander Mgebrov, Maxim Mikhaylov, Vladimir Balashov, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Semyon Timoshenko, Aleksandr Rumnyov

Description

Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

6/6/2022, 6:20:29 PM

Nikolay Cherkasov is superb in this speculative biopic of the infamous Tsar of all the Russias. Made towards the end of the Second World War, Sergei Eisenstein manages to create a magnificent depiction of just how this often barbaric, but actually rather shrewd and intelligent 16th century monarch inherited and retained his throne despite plots and intrigues from his court, his people, his nobles ...